Montague Napier

Montague Stanley Napier (14 April 1870 – 22 January 1931) was an English automobile and aircraft engine manufacturer. His grandfather, David Napier (1785–1873), had moved to London from Scotland and by 1836 had established an engineering company in Lambeth called D. Napier & Son. Montague Napier bought the business from the executors of his father's estate in 1895, and diversified into producing machine tools for the cycle industry.

Following a meeting with businessman and racing driver Selwyn Edge in 1899 Napier diversified into automobile manufacturer, and for a time his company was the leading supplier of luxury cars in the British market. His focus switched from cars to aircraft engines after the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, and he developed the very successful Lion engine.

Napier's failing health forced his move to the south of France in 1915, but he continued to work as a design consultant for his company. He died at his home in Cannes on 22 January 1931, aged 60.

Motor historian Peter King describes Napier as "very secretive by nature"; not much is known about his early life. He was born on 14 April 1870 at 68 York Road, Lambeth, London, the youngest of the four sons of James Murdoch Napier and his wife, Fanny Jemima, née Mackenzie. His father had taken over his own father's interest in the engineering business he had set up there by 1836, making printing machinery for the newspaper industry. The business diversified unto making coin-weighing machines for the Royal Mint, but by the time of James Murdoch Napier's death in 1895 it was in decline. Napier had worked in the family business from an early age, but he was not doing so at the time of his father's death. He bought the business from the executors of his father's estate and diversified into producing machine tools for the cycle industry.

Napier met Selwyn Edge in 1899, for whom he agreed to build a car based on Edge's Panhard et Levassor, which he had bought after it came second in the 1896 Paris–Marseilles race. So impressed was Edge with the result that he contracted to buy six more cars, and set up a showroom in London from which to sell them. The first cars were ready by 1900, and so successful were they that Napier decided to move his company to larger premises in Acton, London. While Napier concentrated on the engineering Edge focused on the marketing and publicity. In 1902 he drove a Napier to victory in that year's Gordon Bennett Cup, the first British victory in an international motor race. Until 1906 Napier cars dominated the British luxury car market, but Napier was unconvinced that there was a sustainable long-term market for such vehicles, unlike Rolls-Royce, his main competitor. Napier therefore set up a new company to develop more popular cars.

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