1959 Lister Knobbly

This is a photograph I took at Britten's chicane during the Hawthorn International Trophy race at the Vintage Sports Car Club's meeting at Oulton Park in June 2008.

It's Barry Wood in his 1959 Lister Knobbly leading Tom Walker in his 1952 Allard J2X Le Mans. Brian Lister started producing sports cars in 1954 first with an MG engine and later with a Bristol engine, but he had the most success with the 1957 car which used the Jaguar D-type engine. The first version of this car was known at the time as a Lister-Jaguar, but after the 1959 car was given a smoother aerodynamic body designed by Frank Costin (and designed to use the Chevrolet Corvette powerplant) the more bulbous earlier car became known as the Lister Knobbly. Barry Wood's car has the 3,781cc version of the Jaguar XK6 engine and is chassis BHL117. The Allard J2X Le Mans was developed from the Allard J2 which had motor cycle style mudguards and the J2X was introduced to comply with 1952 FIA regulations which said that cars must have all-enveloping bodywork. Tom Walker's car has a 5,425cc Cadillac V8 engine.

Crowded Pit Lane

I took this photograph at the Vintage Sports Car Club's SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in May 2008.

It's a line of cars in the pit lane waiting for a practice session for the BRDC Historic Sports Car race to begin. Number 78 is the 1955 Jaguar D-Type of Benjamin Eastick and is chassis XKD 133, not a genuine 1955 car but apparently constructed in the 1970s using genuine Jaguar D-Type parts. I showed photographs of  this car on 11 July 2017. The car in front of the D-Type is Barry Wood's 1959 3.8 litre Jaguar-engined Lister Knobbly, and is chassis BHL 117, a car I featured on 31 October 2017. In front of that is the Cooper T39 Bobtail of John Clark who shared the driving in the one hour long race with (I think) Emma-Jane Gilbart-Smith, and I showed a photograph of this car on 13 March 2018.

Lister Knobbly

I photographed this car in the pit lane at the SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in June 2008.

It's Barry Wood's 1959 3.8 litre Jaguar-engined Lister Knobbly, so-called because of the contrast between the bulbous body compared with the smooth body of its successor, the Lister Chevrolet Costin bodied car. Barry Wood's car is chassis BHL 117 and I've featured it a couple of times before, on 30 July 2015 and 13 June 2017.