D. Napier & Son had its origins as a precision engineering firm founded in London in 1808. The company's transformation into an automobile manufacturer came in the late 1890s through the partnership between Montague Napier, who had inherited the business in 1895, and Selwyn Francis Edge, an Australian-born British businessman and racing enthusiast who had connections to the Dunlop Rubber Company. Edge persuaded Napier to improve his Panhard motor car, and the quality of the result led Edge to encourage Napier to build cars of his own design. The first cars were delivered in March 1900.
From the outset, Edge recognised the publicity value of motor racing at a time when no other British manufacturer was prepared to invest in competition. This strategic decision would prove highly consequential for both men and for British motorsport.
For the 1901 Gordon Bennett Cup, Montague Napier designed an extremely powerful machine. It was a four-cylinder sidevalve car displacing approximately 16.3 litres (990 cubic inches), capable of producing around 103 brake horsepower at just 800 rpm. Edge entered this car in the 1901 event, having barely had time to test it — the car was completed on 25 May, only four days before the race. Montague Napier himself served as riding mechanic.
The car proved overpowered for its Dunlop tyres, and fitting replacement French tyres led to disqualification since the Gordon Bennett rules required all components to be of the same national origin as the car. The entry then retired with clutch trouble in the concurrent Paris-Bordeaux rally.
The 1902 Gordon Bennett Cup brought Napier its greatest triumph. For the event, Napier built a new car: a three-speed, shaft-drive four-cylinder machine displacing 6.44 litres (392.7 cubic inches), with bore and stroke of 127 mm × 127 mm. Although described as a 30 hp car, it likely produced around 44.5 hp. Crucially, the car was finished in what would become known as British racing green — the colour that became the identifying livery of British competition cars for decades to come.
Edge and his cousin Cecil Edge were the only British entrants, and the French contingent — which included cars from Charron-Girardot-Voigt, Mors, and Panhard — represented formidable opposition on paper. However, all French entries retired during the race. Edge and his riding mechanic completed the course at an average speed of 31.8 mph (51.2 km/h), winning by default.
The victory was significant beyond the result itself: it was the first British win in international motor racing, a distinction that was not equalled until Henry Segrave won the 1923 French Grand Prix for Sunbeam, more than two decades later. Winning the Gordon Bennett Cup also brought the right to host the following year's event to Great Britain.
The 1903 Gordon Bennett Cup was held south of Dublin, with Britain hosting as defending champion. Napier entered three shaft-driven cars: two 470-cubic-inch (7,708 cc), 45 hp fours for Charles Jarrott and J. W. Stocks, and an 80 hp machine displacing 838 cubic inches (13,726 cc), the Type K5, for Edge. Both Jarrott and Stocks crashed, and Edge was disqualified. The race was a poor result for the defending champion.
For the 1904 Gordon Bennett in Germany, Edge again drove the K5, with the same outcome: no success. However, a separate development, a new 920-cubic-inch (15-litre) six-cylinder machine designated the L48, with an external radiator, set the fastest time at the Velvet Strand speed trials at Portmarnock, Ireland, in September 1904.
Beyond circuit racing, the Napier machines set important land speed records. In January 1905, the L48 — driven by Arthur McDonald, manager of Napier's Genoa factory — took the mile record at Ormond Beach, Florida, at 104.65 mph (168.42 km/h). Dorothy Levitt, Edge's secretary and a pioneering female racing driver, drove the 100 hp development of the K5 at the Blackpool and Brighton Speed Trials in 1905, and subsequently drove the L48 at Blackpool in 1906, setting a women's record in the flying kilometre of 90.88 mph (146.26 km/h).
The L48, nicknamed Samson, became famous at the newly opened Brooklands circuit in 1907 and 1908. In 1908, Napier's Frank Newton covered a half-mile at 119.34 mph (192.06 km/h) in a version with a lengthened stroke.
The Napier Gordon Bennett racers were central to establishing British motor racing credibility in the Edwardian era. They demonstrated that British engineering could match and occasionally defeat the established French manufacturers who dominated the sport in its earliest years. The 1902 victory created the tradition of British racing green, and the association between Napier, Edge, and the Gordon Bennett Cup was formative for the sport's development in Britain. The racing programme also served as a commercial engine for Napier's road car business: by 1907, the company employed 1,200 people and produced approximately 100 cars a year, sustained in large part by the publicity generated through competition.