It looks like 2018 will see the return of a famous old car brand. Lister Cars, based in Cambridge in the UK, hasn’t produced a new car in almost 25 years, but it’s on its way back.
The brand is perhaps most famous for its long-running association with Jaguar. Its D-Type Jaguar derived race car, commonly known as the Lister Knobbly, may be the most iconic model. Lister also modified some roadgoing Jaguar XJS cars in the 1980s, outfitting them with seven-liter engines for a 200mph top speed.
The 1993 Lister Storm was the brand’s only ground-up car. It built four road cars as homologation for the FIA GT1 category, with the car competing at the Le Mans 24 Hours from 1995 to 1997. A seven-liter V12, the 208mph Storm was the world’s fastest four-seater for more than a decade.
More recently, the company has been making continuation models of the 1958 Knobbly, including a magnesium-bodied 60th anniversary car. However it’s been shy on contemporary models until now.
⚡️L I S T E R T H U N D E R⚡️
⚡️Launching Jan 2018⚡️ pic.twitter.com/1SAtROujRN— Lister (@ListerCars) December 12, 2017
Although heavily under-lit, the car in the image is quite clearly a Jaguar F-Type. This suggests that Lister is returning to form by building from a Jaguar base.
But what exactly is it planning to do? Jaguar already has a sprinkling of high performance F-Types. There’s the SVR, a 567hp, all-wheel drive model with a five-liter, supercharged V8. That can hit 60mph in under four seconds and reach 200mph. Jaguar also produced the limited run Project 7, a rear-wheel drive car based on the convertible model, using the same engine. The regular, 542hp F-Type R isn’t exactly sluggish either.
The only thing we’re relatively sure about is that, with a name like Lister Thunder, it’s unlikely to be a hybrid.
We’ll no doubt find out more in the next few weeks.
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