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This 1908 60hp Napier has a six cylinder engine with a capacity of 11,580 c.c., a 5" bore and a 6" stroke. It was originally built for Selwyn Edge's competition programme having the same dimensions as a Grand Prix engine. In 1909 Edge crashed and subsequently retired from racing, the car being sold in 1910 to Christopher Bird, of the Birds Custard family. He raced it at Brooklands on a number of occasions between 1910 and 1914 and it is featured extensively in the record books. Bird lived in the Midlands and so also competed in various hillclimbs taking a second FTD behind a Daimler at Shelsley in 1911. He sold it back to Napiers in 1913, they then sold it on to Sholto Wilson (later Major Wilson) in 1914, who used it as a road car until 1923 with a break for the Great War. At about that time the gearbox was removed and dismantled, the car being left in an earth-floored shed at Greywell in Hampshire for 40 years. During the war Denis Jenkinson heard about it and discussed it with Bill Boddy who introduced the car to Ronald "Steady" Barker who subsequently bought it after Wilson's death and spent two years restoring it. It has been constantly in use ever since and is now in the joint ownership of Trevor Tarring and Tony Jones who proudly inform me that they drive the Napier to and from every event. Apart from one recovery which was handled by the R.A.C. it has never travelled anywhere on a trailer. What's it worth? Who can say. It is a unique Edwardian car with a very distinguished racing history and there are precious few left - particularly with Brooklands provenance.
Proud owners Tony Jones and Trevor Tarring in the Brooklands paddock at the 1998 Reunion.
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