The Storm road car was built around a 7.0-litre Jaguar V12 engine, a unit derived from the engine used in the Jaguar XJR-9 endurance racer that had competed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The bored and stroked twenty-four-valve V12 generated 554 PS at 6,100 rpm and 790 Nm of torque, making it the largest V12 engine fitted to a production road car since World War II. The body used Kevlar and aluminium panels over an aluminium honeycomb monocoque, with doors and greenhouse components borrowed from the Volkswagen Corrado. The resulting car weighed 1,664 kg, accelerated from rest to 97 km/h in 4.1 seconds, and claimed a top speed of 335 km/h. Due to the high purchase price of £220,000, only four road-going examples were produced.
The Lister Storm GTS made its race debut at the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans in the GT1 class, competing against the McLaren F1 GTR, Ferrari F40 LM, Jaguar XJ220S, and Porsche 911 GT2. Driven by Geoff Lees, Rupert Keegan, and Dominic Chappell, the car retired after 40 laps with gearbox failure.
For 1996, the team signed a sponsorship deal with Newcastle United football club and engaged engineer Geoff Kingston. Significant changes were made including revised bodywork, repositioning the engine 5 inches rearward to improve weight distribution, relocating the Hewland gearbox to the rear and replacing it with a six-speed sequential unit, and fitting wide rear tyres on the front axle to improve handling balance. The team previewed the updated Storm at the 24 Hours of Daytona, where it failed to finish after a high-speed crash involving Kenny Acheson, who suffered temporary vision loss and chest injuries. At Le Mans that year, the rebuilt Storm finished the race, albeit 59 laps behind the winner in nineteenth place overall. The team then entered the BPR Global GT Series, showing competitive pace at several rounds but retiring from each due to mechanical failures.
For 1997, Lister redesigned the Storm with a longer, more aerodynamic nose and a carbon-fibre structure and body panels, producing the Storm GTL. The revised car competed at the 24 Hours of Daytona, taking nineteenth overall and fourth in class. Two Storm GTLs were entered at Le Mans but both retired before lap 77. In the 1997 British GT Championship, the car took one race win and one second place at Donington Park.
In 1998, the Storm GTL failed scrutineering for Le Mans due to the absence of a rear window in its revised design. That season in British GT, the car finished fifth overall with Tiff Needell and Julian Bailey, taking two victories and seven podiums across three entered cars.
The 1999 British GT Championship brought a significant result: an updated Storm GTL driven by Jamie Campbell-Walter and Julian Bailey won the overall championship, taking seven race victories. The title was disputed by rival teams but ultimately confirmed. The Storm GT2-class variant also won the GT2 category that year.
From 1999 onwards, Lister entered a reworked version of the original GTS bodywork, known simply as the Storm GT, in the FIA GT Championship under the new GT2 class rules. After a difficult start in the 1999 season — retiring from strong positions at Monza and Silverstone — the team recovered to score a second place at Donington Park and finished fifth in the teams' championship despite only entering half the rounds.
In 2000, with the departure of factory Chrysler-Oreca from the championship, Lister capitalised by winning five rounds through the season with drivers Julian Bailey and Jamie Campbell-Walter. Despite receiving an inlet restrictor from round seven onwards at the A1 Ring, Lister claimed both the teams' and drivers' championships. The same year, Lister's two British GT teams combined for nine victories in that series.
The 2001 FIA GT season saw four wins from the factory cars, though third in the teams' standings behind Larbre Competition and Carsport Holland. In British GT, David Warnock and Mike Jordan took the championship with seven race victories. A similar pattern continued in 2002: three FIA GT wins but second in the teams' standings, beaten again by Larbre.
In 2003, the Lister factory team was joined by a customer entry from Creation Autosportif. Factory driver Campbell-Walter claimed the FIA GT season's last Lister class win at Anderstorp, and finished on the podium at Monca. The team's last top result in FIA GT came in 2003. From 2004, with the factory team scaling back to focus on a new LMP project, Creation Autosportif became the primary Storm campaigner, running into 2004 before also transitioning to Le Mans Prototypes.
The Lister Storm stands as a rare example of a small British manufacturer competing at the highest level of GT racing against factory-supported programmes from Ferrari, Chrysler, and Porsche. Its record of FIA GT championship victories, including outright championship titles in 2000, demonstrated that a privateer British car could defeat well-funded factory efforts when conditions aligned correctly. The Storm's GT2 and British GT dominance from 1999 to 2002 represents the high point of Lister Cars' motorsport history.