A copy of the last Storm racing car from 2001 will soon go under the hammer
The late 1990s and early 2000s were epic for GT racing. We had bedroom poster heroes like the Porsche 911 GT1, McLaren F1, and Mercedes CLK GTR fighting on the track and looking fabulous while making the kind of angry noises that are conspicuously lacking in modern sports car series. Among them was a lesser-known player who could still give his more established competition a bloody nose from time to time – the Lister Storm.
The Storm is that rare supercar beast – one that places its engine in front of the cockpit. This engine is not just something like a GM LS box engine. Instead, Lister decided that what the Storm needed was a 7.0-liter V12 borrowed from Jaguar’s XJR9 racing car. Hello 542 PS, a time from 0 to 100 km / h in four seconds and a top speed of 208 km / h. Back then it wasn’t much faster.
Only four street cars were built between 1993 and 1994, but the racing versions enjoyed a much longer lifespan. First came the GTS and the GTL, which were built with the FIA’s GT1 rules in mind. As is well known, the GTL was sponsored for a time by the football club Newcastle United. After the GTL was eliminated, the car you see here was – the GT2-focused Storm GT.
The chassis number GTM005 was built in March 2001, in time to enter the FIA GT championship this year. It competed under the Lister Racing banner from 2001 to 2003 and took five podiums in those three seasons, including a win at Anderstorp Raceway in Sweden.
Lister sold it in 2004 to a guy named Fournier Laroque who drove it under the guise of Red Racing with the support of the factory. Two seasons in the FFSA GT Championship produced some decent results, including a win at Pau. It wasn’t all smooth, however, as an accident in qualifying at the Circuit d’Albi destroyed the chassis.
It was rebuilt with the Storm number GTM001, which itself crashed at an auto show in Italy, but not so badly that the chassis was damaged. Then ownership passed to Gravity Racing, who brought the car to the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2008.
The car has rarely been seen in public since, but it is now up for auction. Included in the sale is, hopefully, a fair amount of paperwork detailing the history of the Storm, along with the damaged GTM005 chassis. The car is kept in its mostly black paintwork from 2003. Moody.
It’s slated to go under the hammer on November 19th via RM Sotheby’s as part of the breathtaking Guikas Collection. Other lots include a Jaguar XJ220 C LM and a Renault-Alpine A442, both with seven-figure estimates. The Storm is a comparatively cheap bargain, with a lower estimate of “only” € 550,000 (£ 470,000). It’s a very exciting way of spending about half a million, don’t you think?
The post This Lister Storm GT is a very exciting way to spend £ 500,000 or so first appeared on monter-une-startup.
