6 replies to this topic

[Ron Scoma]

Does anyone know any information about Lister chassis number 113?
I believe it was sold new to Carroll Shelby.

Thanks
Ron

[cabianca]

Ron,
This poses an interesting question. At the end of Shelby's time with his entrant John Edgar, Shelby was in charge of a project to put a 450S Maserati engine from Edgar's 450S into a Knobbly at Lister's shop. It drug on for some time, way over budget and was finally finished There were pics of the car w/Maserati in the British press. It was shipped to the US and kept at Luigi Chinetti's Ferrari dealership in NY for a time and then brought West to California. Somewhere along the line, the car was damaged. Troutman and Barnes did the repairs, but the can never ran under Edgar entry. Nor do I know of any Lister Maserati V8 ever competing. I do know that Edgar put the engine back into his Maserati, so my guess is that the car got a Jag or Chev and was probably sold on from Shelby-Hall or by Shelby himself. I have never been able to put a number on the car I just described. There has been traffic before on this forum. Perhaps if you put Lister-Maserati in the search engine...

[Ron Scoma]

I "think" (always dangerous for me) that it may have had a Monzanapolis Jag engine installed at one point.

Cheers,

Ron

[David McKinney]

BHL113 is one of four cars listed in Archie and the Listers as having been supplied to Shelby.
It is also the number of a car which appeared in France in the 1970s in the ownership of Dr Philippe Renault (one of several he owned) and, from about 1982, by Roland Urban. Naturally, it features strongly in Urban's Les Métamorphoses du Jaguar, with the information that it was equipped - the suggestion is from new - with a wide-angle 3.8 engine. Although green and yellow in the illustrations, it was said to have originally been white and blue
In no way do I claim any or all the above to be factual - so many Listers were 're-created' in the '70s that I have doubts about all of them

[Don Capps]

Originally posted by David McKinney
In no way do I claim any or all the above to be factual - so many Listers were 're-created' in the '70s that I have doubts about all of them

Alas, this is a factor which has made me up throw my arms skyward in disgust or frustration more than a few times over the past decade or so.

[Doug Nye]

You are so right to sound a sceptical note. In my lengthy researches into the Lister story it became very apparent that there had, once upon a time, been a definitive Brian Lister (Light Engineering) Limited company chassis book.

It was also very apparent that chassis numbers had been issued in the form 'BHL1', 'BHL 101' etc etc, the initials standing for 'Brian Horace Lister'.

It also became apparent that the book and other records had been disposed of, when the company was wound up.

Such were the demands of Purchase Tax on sports-racing cars during the 1950s that powerful forces had been at work...

When Dr Philippe Renault built his Jaguar-powered racing car collection he began to accumulate evidence and happenstance and supposition regarding which 'BHL' chassis serials had been issued to whom.

He had some evidence in the metal in cars he owned.

Some of them had genuine frames, thus stamped in period. Some had not. Some period chassis frames were never stamped.

Anyway, Dr Renault compiled a list which he circulated to a small number of people and copies of this listing later found their way into the wicked - and in some case not so wicked, to be fair - motor trade.

A percentate of the list was (and still is) spit and hope - a further percentage is pure BS.

It never ceases to amuse me when Listers are confidently described as 'being' chassis serial "Bee-Aitch-Ell Blardy Blah".... 'cos I know most of the blokes who would have stamped-up those chassis, having just had them welded together first....in the 1970s, and the 1980s...and the 1990s. The number of Lister 'Knobblies' and 'Costins' running today with original chassis frames made in Abbey Road, Cambridge between 1957 and 1959 is very small - indeed......

DCN

[karlcars]

Careful about putting "Lister Maserati" in any search engine. It could turn up the earlier car built with a Maserati A6GCS-2000 six -- quite a potent combination and a wicked-looking car.