This Lister Storm GT Is A Very Exciting Way To Spend £500k Or So

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 battling it out on track, looking fabulous while belting out the kind of angry noises that are conspicuously absent from modern sports car series. There was a lesser-known player amongst all that, though, but one that was still able to give its 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. Said powerplant isn’t just something like a GM LS crate motor, either. Instead, Lister decided what the Storm needed was a 7.0-litre V12 borrowed from Jaguar‘s XJR9 racer. Hello 542bhp, a four-second 0-62mph time and a top speed of 208mph. Back then, not much was faster.

Just four road cars were built between 1993 and 1994, but the racing versions enjoyed a much longer life. First came the GTS and GTL, built with the FIA’s GT1 rules in mind. Famously, the GTL was sponsored by the Newcastle United football club for a period. After the retirement of the GTL was the car you see here - the GT2-focused Storm GT.

Chassis number GTM005 was built in March 2001, in time to enter the FIA GT Championship that year. It competed under the Lister Racing banner from 2001 to 2003, bagging five podiums over those three seasons including a victory at Anderstorp Raceway in Sweden.

Lister sold it to a chap called Fournier Laroque in 2004, who raced it under the guise of Red Racing with backing from the factory. Two seasons in the FFSA GT Championship yielded some decent results, including a win in Pau. It wasn’t all plain sailing though, with a qualifying crash at Circuit d’Albi wrecking the chassis.

It was rebuilt using Storm number GTM001, which itself had been crashed at a car show in Italy but not badly enough to damage the chassis. Ownership subsequently passed to Gravity Racing, which brought the car to the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2008.

The car has been seldom seen in public since, but now, it’s up for auction. Included in the sale is - as you’d hope - a whole load of paperwork detailing the Storm’s history, along with the damaged GTM005 chassis. The car is finished in its predominantly black 2003 livery. Moody.

It’s set to go under the hammer on 19 November via RM Sotheby’s as part of the jaw-dropping Guikas Collection. Other lots include a Jaguar XJ220 C LM and a Renault-Alpine A442, both of which have seven-figure estimates. The Storm is a comparative bargain, with a lower estimate of ‘just’ €550,000 (£470,000). That’s a very exciting way to spend around half a million, don’t you think?