1995 Lister Storm – Project Profile

When the Lister Storm burst on to the scene in ’93 it pretty much stole the show, grabbing headlines along the way as the fastest four-seater ever. And the reason for that? Its 7.0-litre Jaguar V12 engine with not one but two superchargers that produced 546bhp and 583lb ft of torque, allowing for a top speed of 208mph and a 0-60 time of 4.1seconds. Look up the term rapid in the dictionary and you’ll find the definition of the word rapid, which the Lister Storm most definitely is.

It was an exciting time. Here was a brand new UK-built sports car that looked the part and went like stink that was built to race in the GT1 class at Le Mans. A homologation special to boot, the road-going versions went straight into production alongside the track-ready models and immediately found their place amongst supercar royalty. Unfortunately each car cost over £200,000 to build and so only a handful were ever made before production of the road cars was curtailed.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Lister story the company began by making Jaguar-based racers back in the ’50s but it wasn’t until ’86, now under the ownership of engineer Laurence Pearce, that it began tuning Jaguar XJ-Ss, establishing itself as the one stop shop for people who wanted their Jaguars improved to Cheetah spec. For all his big cat fettling, however, Pearce’s true passion lay in building his very own racing car. So that’s exactly what he did with the Lister Storm.

As impressive as the car was on paper, and on the road, it failed to consistently deliver on the track, retiring on its debut at Le Mans. It would see some success in GT racing until the mid-2000s at which point it was put out to pasture for good.

What is it?

With so few road cars made it’s always a special event when one comes up for sale and the car we have here is one such example, albeit in need of some work due to being an incomplete cancelled order. It’s a LHD 1995 Lister Storm – chassis number: SA9STRM2BSP0530006 and its provenance has apparently recently been confirmed in correspondence by Fiona Pearce, wife of the aforementioned Laurence Pearce who conceived the car.

Why is it a project?

Full disclosure: this is not a complete car. Despite having over £35K and many years spent on it there are still myriad missing parts and fabrication work that is required. You can read all about what has been done and what remains to be finished in the advert and on the seller’s web site but suffice to say this is quite the opportunity for someone.

What should you look for?

As with any project like this we would urge you to do your own research and carry out the proper due diligence but from what we can see this appears to be a genuine Lister Storm. Compile a list of exactly what is missing and what is required to get the car back on the road and factor this into your budget as the investment needed could easily skyrocket. Apparently Lister gave the seller everything it had left on the shelf for the road cars before shutting down but we have no doubt that there will be some missing bits and bobs that could prove difficult to obtain or recreate.

What should you do with it?

You can either finish the build using what has already been accomplished as a base or completely strip the thing and start again. The seller claims that the major mechanicals should all be fine so, as we’ve mentioned above, the all important part, is the all important parts. Once all the pieces of the puzzle are collected and you have everything required then it’s just big, expensive Lego, if you’ll forgive our rather crude trivialisation. Oh. It’ll need registering, too as the car does not currently have a V5. Bon Courage!