Lister Storm II hypercar teased, with a switch from V12 to electric

Two years ago, the revamped Lister Motor Company dished out sketches for a Storm II hypercar. The name was a nod to the 1993 Le Mans race car and road derivative created by another incarnation of Lister in 1993, which housed a Jaguar XJR-9-derived 7.0-liter V12 amidships producing 546 horsepower. The tentative plan in 2018 was for the Storm II to get a Jaguar-derived 7.8-liter V12 spooling up something like 1,000 horsepower and pointing its snout at the likes of McLaren, Pagani, and Koenigsegg. That was all so two years ago, though. Lister CEO Lawrence Whittaker recently tweeted another image of the Storm II, this time a profile drawing, with the captions, “A glimpse into the future of Lister … the Storm II,” and, “Lister EV super car research.” The EV part is what matters here, Whittaker apparently changing tack on the powertrain and the competitive set.

The side shot offers a look at the vanishing point rear end, a look calling to mind either a truncated McLaren Speedtail, or Speed Racer’s Mach 5 with the fender fins combined into a single shark fin down the centerline. Our best attempts to enhance and enlarge make it seem there’s a deployable spoiler behind the shark fin. The backside’s other big prominent feature is a deep diffuser. In the photo, the carbon fiber floor extends beyond the trailing edge of the bodywork, almost never seen on a car outside of a race track, and even then that car is most likely on a trailer. That makes symmetry, the carbon fiber front splitter jutting beyond the yellow-rimmed intake at the other end.

Original specs were for the V12-powered Storm II to hit 60 miles per hour in under 3 seconds, on its way to a top speed beyond 250 miles per hour, all for a price starting at £2 million ($2.6M U.S.). Lister’s hometown competition, the Lotus Evija, has restrained its top speed references to something “beyond 200 mph,” and the just-announced Apex “hyper-EV” runs out at 174 mph. The Rimac C-Two and Pininfarina Battista, though, have proved Lister’s trio of targets achievable with far less aggressive looks. We won’t be surprised if Lister has a terminal velocity in mind well beyond the Rimac’s 258 mph.

We hope Lister can show us something more than another rendering come 2022. For now, the company seems busy building the F-Type-based LFT and F-Pace-based LCP, various versions of the continuation Lister Knobbly race cars, and selling classic and performance cars out of its new dealership in Blackburn, England.