Born: Early 1950s Nationality: British
Brian Lister, owner of George Lister & Sons engineering company, developed a number of small racing cars, both out of personal interest and to promote his business, which became known and respected in the motorsport business.
In 1954, a Lister powered by a Bristol engine won 14 victories, even beating works Jaguars and Aston Martins. In 1957, a Jaguar-powered Lister driven by Archie Scott-Brown won 10 out of 14 races, including the British Empire Trophy Race.
BP sponsored Jaguar D-Types at the time. After a fire made the cars unavailable, the fuel giant offered Lister a sponsorship deal, including a batch of D-Type engines, if he would build a racing chassis and body to compete wearing BP livery. The new car used innovative space frame technologies and materials were largely aluminium and magnesium.
The first version rolled out in 1957. The body was innovative in style, gaining the sobriquet, Knobbly Lister, with its strongly sculpted and flowing style. Numbers produced in 1958 were small - only 17 were built, most being exported to the US for major racers including Briggs Cunningham, Jim Hall and Carroll Shelby. Over a number of years, Cunningham replaced his D-Types with the Lister Jaguars. Hall and Shelby liked the car, but used Chevrolet engines.
Back in Europe, Listers ran in Le Mans in both 1958 and 1959, but without success.
The aerodynamics of the Knobbly Listers proved to be very sound, but in 1959 a new body was commissioned from aeroplane engineer Frank Costin. He "deknobbed" the car, but its smoother lines didn't improve speed. Indeed, as the car had a larger frontal area than the Knobbly, it was slower and just 11 were built.
Again, Briggs Cunningham was a buyer, and he raced both a Knobbly and a Costin at the 1959 Sebring, with Stirling Moss as one of the Costin drivers. The British Le Mans ace drove a very competitive race, but was disqualified after hitching a ride on a marshall's motorcycle to get a can of petrol after he ran out.
Through the following season the Costin Listers proved to be quite successful, but technologies were moving fast. Cunningham eventually phased out his Listers in favour of Jaguar's new and sexy, and powerful E-Types. In 1964, a Sunbeam Lister Tiger Le Mans, with a Ford V8 powering it, was produced.
Lister Engineering built no more racing cars until the early 1980s, when a new car was designed for the Lister Challenge, a series for Jaguar sports cars. A number of performance road cars were built through the decade, mostly Jaguar conversions.
In 1991 a completely new car, the Storm (pictured), went into production in 1993. Powered by a 7-litre Jaguar V12 engine with 595bhp, its 0-60mph time was 4.1 seconds. A Storm GT1 was produced for the new GT racing series. Over the rest of the decade, the Storm competed strongly at Le Mans, Daytona and other major US events as well as the FIA Global GT Championship. In 1999, with both GT1 and GT2 cars competing, the Lister name was constantly on the podium in major trophy and championship events in Britain and across Europe. The car was still powered by a 7-litre V12, but power was down to 560bhp though the 0-60mph was improved to 3.2 seconds. The Lister Storm team won the FIA GT Constructors World Championship in 2000.
Since then a Lister LMP900 has been competing in the Le Mans Endurance series around Europe - after a poor start with an accident at Le Mans in 2003. In that same year, the two FIA GT Storms brought the team to second place in the GT Championship.
BEST CAR: For the old generation, the Knobbly, especially with the Chevy engines. Today's generation would pick the current Storm GTs
WORST CAR: The Costin Lister didn't hold its competitive edge for long enough
WEIRDEST CAR: The cars are two rare and expensive to ever consider weird.