Thank Frankel it’s Friday: The Lister Knobbly Continuation is simply brilliant

The weekend didn’t quite work out as planned: the engine ran rough in practice (it took us a while to figure out that it didn’t like Goodwood’s posh, high octane fuel – once we filled it with stuff from Sainsbury’s it was absolutely fine), then we lost third gear in qualifying. Then, as the race approached, so the clouds gathered. Hideously sensitive to set up, we had to decide which way to go and because I was always told to play the weather you have, not that which you expect, we went for dry settings.

Which turned out to be a big mistake. I went first and what was absolutely infuriating was that the rain was enough to wet most of the track, but with a dry line for the cars. Which meant overtaking was almost impossible because the moment I moved off line, the car wanted to spin. Poor Richard caught a deluge and did brilliantly just to stay on the track and bring it home somewhere near the top ten.

I mention this now for three reasons: to say happy birthday to a man with as good a claim as any to being the best bloke in motor-racing, to recall a Goodwood themed anecdote the day before a race weekend and to introduce another Lister that most certainly won’t be racing at Goodwood this weekend or any time soon.

I did once drive the coupe on the road, sneakily before a race at Dijon because it was misbehaving again, and there was no other way of seeing if our fix had worked. It was horrible: I’ve always believed that if road cars are usually pretty disappointing on the track, that’s nothing compared to how terrible are racing cars on the road. But now I’ve driven another Lister on the road, and somewhat contrary to expectations, it was a riot.

It is the first Lister to qualify for Individual Vehicle Approval and therefore be registered for the road a new car. And new it is, although this is no replica: it’s made by George Lister Engineering just like the original ‘Knobbly’ and even on the same jig. It costs £300,000, or £315,000 if you want yours to come with the sunken filler caps, soft edged switchgear and just about road legal tyres required to earn it the right to wear a numberplate. In all other regards from its De Dion rear axle to its full race, wide angle, 330bhp, 3.8-litre Jaguar engine, it is exactly the same as the Listers in which Archie Scott Brown, Stirling Moss and others dominated the domestic sports racing scene in the late 1950s.

And it is incredible. That might not sound like much power in this era where supercar outputs start at 500bhp, but in a car weighing 900kg ready for the road, it goes a long, long way. Almost as far as the howl of that engine blasting out of those exhausts. The Lister factory in Cambridge must have very understanding neighbours.

But what’s best about it – if you don’t include the look of the thing, the noise it makes and the fact you’re driving a genuine continuation Lister – is that it feels so compact. You can commit to a challenging road with far greater confidence than you would in a modern, ultra-wide hypercar. So despite the fact its tyres are skinny and don’t have much grip, you’d probably be quicker too. And when the back does break away you’re not forced into crisis management mode: this is how the car and its tyres are designed to be driven, so you just keep the power on, correct with the super swift steering and slither on your way.

It’s as much fun as it sounds, the only real drawbacks being it’s not much fun in a 30mph limit and all the time you’re driving it, there’s a sizeable part of you that would far prefer to be on a race-track. But at least now you can. Imagine a day where you wake up, drive your road registered Knobbly to Goodwood, do a full track day and go home. It would be a near perfect day out. Except it would first have to pass Goodwood’s noise meters, which would probably be the biggest challenge of the entire day.