Lister Lister-Bristol History

When Brian Lister turned his Cambridge ironworks to car building in 1954, the first full sports-racing car used an MG engine before quickly graduating to a Moore-tuned Bristol 2.0-litre unit — the same six-cylinder engine that powered many leading British racing cars of the era via its BMW Type 328 heritage.

The Lister-Bristol was a competitive club-racing machine and gave the young Archie Scott Brown his first significant victories in a Lister. Approximately ten Bristol-engined cars were built across 1954–1957, establishing the template of a light space-frame chassis clothed in aluminium bodywork that would define the later Knobbly.