Lister is looking into making a new Storm… EV

Though Lister CEO Lawrence Whittaker won’t tell us more about this phenomenon for the time being, his company’s Twitter account would like you to know that “a Storm is coming”. This is interesting, since the last time Lister produced a Storm road car, it was 1994 and people in the UK were listening to songs like Inside by Scottish post-grunge band Stiltskin, partly because a sex-infused Levi’s commercial suggested they should and, preferably, through a Walkman, as they stood in queue for tickets to see Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Lister only sold four road-going Storms. That’s because while the Storm’s unapologetic 7.0-liter Jaguar V-12 made it the fastest front-engined four-seater in the world, it also made it more expensive than what most were willing to pay for a front-engined four-seater. However, as a homologation special for GT racing, this hardly mattered, and the Storm GTS debuted at the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans, classified in GT1 along McLaren F1 GTRs, Ferrari F40 LMs, Porsche 911 GT2s, and even Jaguar’s XJ220s. Unfortunately, whether it was a twin-turbo V-6 or a naturally-aspirated V-12, a Jaguar engine just wasn’t going to finish that race in ’95.

Back when it was just starting out in the ’50s, Lister jammed various engines into more aerodynamic racing bodies, the most famous of which became the Jaguar-based Lister Knobblys. Due to all that success, Lister continues to hand-build classic Knobbly models to this day but, of course, will also sell you a 666-horsepower F-Type, a 670-hp F-Pace, or the promise of a modern Knobbly roadster.

So as we wait for a new Knobbly Roadster, or try to wrap our heads around the concept of an electric successor to the 546-horsepower V-12 Storm, let’s just take a deep breath and remember Mr. Whittaker’s 2018 tweet regarding a certain Storm II. I won’t forget it, because it was my birthday, and suddenly all I wanted was a new Storm. Since then, I realized a Jaguar C-X75 would do just as well. Really, whichever gets there first. A C-X75 tuned by Lister? Oh, that’s what the proposed Storm II seems to be.

Should we just let that concept go, regardless of the badge? Fair. But then, Lister’s first EV really needs to be what science describes as a lightning storm.