Lister Knobbly continuation is ready to race, for £250k

Well, who’s going to beat you?” was Stirling Moss’s disarming retort when he was asked about the Lister Knobbly’s competitiveness after his decisive victory at Silverstone in the sports car support race before the 1958 British GP.

Designed by racing driver and engineer Brian Lister and built at his father’s engineering firm in Cambridge, the ‘Knobbly’ (so called because of its curvaceous bodywork) saw-off competition from the wealthy factory teams of Ferrari, Maserati and Jaguar, winning no fewer than 11 of the 14 races it entered during the first year of its production.

Powered by either a 3.8-litre Jaguar D-type engine or a Chevrolet V8 cradled in a lightweight, tubular chassis and wrapped in magnesium bodywork, the 180mph Knobbly was a true giant-killer that thrilled the crowds at circuits including Spa-Francorchamps, Le Mans, Sebring, Goodwood and, of course, Silverstone.

Around 50 original Knobblies were built between 1957 and 1959, after which Lister continued to develop other competition cars before selling the company in 1986.

In 2013, it was taken over by Lancashire car warranty tycoon Andrew Whittaker who helped return the Lister name to the limelight by building limited runs of brand new Knobblies, including road–going versions and a £1m Moss edition that paid tribute to that famous 1958 Silverstone victory.

But the car on offer at Besley Heritage is not such a recreation, instead being labelled a ‘continuation’ on account of the fact that it has been meticulously built onto what is believed to be an original Lister chassis  accompanied by a stamped buff logbook dating back to 1961.

Although that’s two years after Knobbly production officially ceased, the chassis is believed to have been retained by Lister as a spare before being bought from the works during the early 1960s and used as the basis for an otherwise unrelated ‘special’.

Once the chassis was correctly identified, however, it was built into the superb Knobbly continuation that it is today, complete with a full, period-correct Crosthwaite & Gardiner engine kit that includes a wide-angle cylinder head and an induction manifold enabling the use of Weber DCO3 carburettors. The bodywork, meanwhile, has been built by specialists Fred Fairman and Ian Headon to the exact measurements of Lister’s original design.

An all-synchromesh gearbox makes the street-legal racer more of a practical proposition for road use, with the car sitting on Lynx D-type Dunlop racing wheels and wearing a coat of paint in the famous blue of David Murray’s Ecurie Ecosse.

As well as completing the build to perfection, the livery (as Charlie Besley observes) offers a “fitting nod” to the team car that carried the Scottish trade plate 341 SG – driven in period by Masten Gregory and regularly seen these days at the Goodwood Revival and Le Mans Classic. And with a full FIA Historic Technical Passport, this beautifully crafted continuation could very well end-up on the grid beside it.

1958 Lister-Jaguar ‘Knobbly’ continuation

On sale with Besley Heritage, Northamptonshire. Asking: £249,995. besleyheritage.com

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