Brian Lister (L), with his Lister Motor Car team in November of 2014. Photo courtesy Lister Cars.
Brian Lister, whose cars carried the Union Jack in international sports car racing once Jaguar ended its competition program in the middle 1950s, died on Tuesday, December 16. He was 88.
Lister is forever linked with the Jaguar-powered sports cars he built, which continued the tradition of Coventry power in sports car racing after Jaguar adjusted its focus to road cars following an exceptional string of success at Le Mans. The offspring of a family of engineers, Lister became involved in racing through a car club, whose members included the Scottish driver Archie Scott-Brown. The two men became allies, first racing a Tojero before Lister’s father agreed to finance a racing car bearing the family name. The first Lister, powered by an MG engine, won its maiden outing in 1954 in Scott-Brown’s hands.
Subsequent Lister cars used Jaguar, Bristol, Maserati and Corvette engines, and built an enviable competition record. In 1957, works Lister-Jaguars entered 14 races and won 12, usually setting the fastest lap in the process. Yet his presence in the sport would prove to be short. Scott-Brown was killed at Spa in 1958. The following year, so were Lister’s close acquaintances Ivor Bueb and Jean Behra, after which Lister essentially walked away from the sport. His final automotive effort (at least until the 2013 formation of the Lister Motor Company) came when he prepared a team of works Sunbeams for Le Mans in 1964. Lister took the family firm into the manufacture of packaging equipment, and also remained an active jazz drummer until late in his life.
The video below, filmed in early December, features Quentin Wilson conducting what would be the final interview with Brian Lister.
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