Napier: The First to Wear the Green

by David Venables

This account of Napier cars - Britain's first internationally successful racing cars - describes the men who built and competed in them and the engines later used to achieve a number of land speed records. The book draws from sources such as Napier factory records and the notebooks of Edwardian drivers. It also includes information how racing cyclist S.F. Edge bought a Panhard and asked Montague Napier to modify it; how Napier built cars which Edge marketed through racing; the company's racing activities from 1896 to 1914, including victory in the 1902 Gordon Bennett Trophy, Britain's first international racing success; how during World War One Napier built aero engines, including the Lion engine which went into production in 1918; the successes for aero-engined cars using the Edwardian Napier chassis at Brooklands; the racing and record-breaking of the Napier Lion-engined cars from 1927 to 1947; and John Cobb's 1939 land speed record of 403 mph at Utah, in the USA - the first car to exceed 400mph, a record which remained unbeaten until 1963.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published March 1, 1998