Page 141 - Bespoke Issue

THUNDER [thuhn-der] noun A loud explosive or resounding noise.
Thirty years after Laurence Pearce developed the Lister Le Mans and the Lister Storm, Lister unleash the “Thunder”.
This new Lister is based on the already stunningly fast Jaguar F-Type and features a highly tuned version of the seriously potent 5.0 litre supercharged V8 which now produces a devilishly quick 666bhp... de nitely the mark of the beast. Along with a bespoke body and Listers superb interior enhancements other upgrades have been made to the exhaust system and the suspension to complete the package. Lister say they set themselves a simple brief, to design and build the fastest, most powerful and most luxurious Lister ever made. This will be a very rare beast indeed as only ninety nine Thunders will ever be built.
The history behind Britain’s oldest and most successful racing car company of the 1950s is as impressive as its cars to date. In October 1956, Sir William Lyons announced that the Jaguar works racing effort would cease after the 1957 season citing the “heavy burden on the Technical and Research Branch of the engineering division. Shell- Mex BP the fuel sponsors for both Jaguar and Lister were keen for representation of the British market and so was Jaguar.
A cost effective way of accomplishing this was for a Jaguar engine to be tted to a different chassis. Brian Lister was approached, but was initially reluctant, Jaguar persuaded him to get involved and agreed via Shell-Max BP to supply a Jaguar engine and transmission to be tted into a Lister chassis with full factory support. Designed by the then 27 year old Brian Lister it was entered into 14 races in 1957. In the process of winning 11 of those races, it also broke the lap record at every single track with the driver Archie Scott Brown at the wheel.
The Lister ”Knobbly” Jaguar was known as a giant killer in the 1950s, reaching speeds of up to 180 mph and regularly out pacing its Ferrari, Maserati and Jaguar rivals. The cars from Cambridge, as they were also known by, built about 50 “Knobblys” Between 1957 and 1959 before concentrating on models like the Jaguar XJS Lister. They constructed a further four for the engineering rms’ centenary in 1990.
Since 1957 Lister have been dedicated to the Jaguar marque. Thirty years later in 1987, under the new ownership of Laurence Pearce development began on a tuned Jaguar XJS V12, which would become known as the Lister Le Mans. In total 90 of those cars were constructed and the project was
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