Last updated on December 13th, 2024 at 04:50 pm
While we’ve already seen screenshots using Group C cars and an Audi GT3, the first car announced for GRRevival is the Lister Storm GT from the late 1990s. It’s been revealed with a screenshot of just the work in progress wheels, which allowed newsletter subscribers to potentially win lifetime access to the new sim racing title if they were the first to name the make and model.
Originally founded by racing driver David Lister in Cambridge back in 1954, the motor company was an offshoot of George Lister Engineering Limited, which began back in 1890. Originally developing chassis and bodywork around Bristol, Jaguar, Chevrolet and Maserati engines, the company achieved some motorsport successes before it became dormant in the late 1970s.
The Lister name returned in 1986 after being purchased by Laurence Pearce. And it came back with the £220,000 Lister Storm, powered by a 7 litre Jaguar V12 based on the engine used by the XJR-9 endurance prototype. Four road cars were produced with a top speed of 208mph and 546hp, with only three surviving models still in existence. But it was enough to begin a new motorsport programme.
A Lister Storm GTS debuted at the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans in the GT1 class, competing against a field including the McLaren F1 GTR, Ferrari F40LM, Jaguar XJ220S and Porsche 911 GT2 but struggled with reliability. In 1997, the GTL was built using a carbon fibre structure and bodywork to take on the Mercedes-Benz CLK GTR and Porsche 911 GT1, and took one win in the 1997 British GT championship, two in the 1998 season, and the overall title in 1999, along with the Storm GT taking the GT2 category.
From 1999 until 2005, the Lister Storm GT competed in both the FIA GT Championship and British series, competing against the likes of the Chrysler Viper GTS-R, Lamborghini Diablo GTR, Porsche 911 GT2, Ferrari 550 GTS Maranello and Saleen S7-R.
The highlight was winning the GIA GT Championship in 2000 with drivers Julian Bailey and Jamie Campbell-Walter winning the driver and team titles (also competing that year was a Marcos Mantara LM600, from the company originally founded in Wales in 1959).
While the Storm GT slowly faded into retirement alongside the company (which was bought by Andrew and Lawrence Whittaker in 2013 and has returned to producing historic and Jaguar-based models), it proved a popular choice in the GTR and GTR2 sim racing titles.
Given that Straight4 CEO worked on those games before moving on to Project CARS, and there’s also been a cockpit shot of a Ferrari 550 shown in the past, it seems the GTRevival name will potentially include an appropriate number of historic cars. The question now will be where the team sets their starting point, with the official FIA championship beginning in 1997 (taking over from the BPR Global GT Series, which had started in 1994).
You can keep up with all the latest GTRevival news and updates, here. Along with seeing all of the cars revealed so far in our GTRevival car list, and all of the circuits in our GTRevival track list.
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