1902: Selwyn Edge's Napier wins the Gordon Bennett Cup, earning Britain the right to host the next race. A 12mph speed limit rules that out at home, so 1903 runs instead through County Kildare, Ireland. As thanks to their hosts, the British team darkens its cars to a shamrock green — deeper than the olive Napier wore the year before, and the shade that outlives the race itself. Kildare Shamrock holds onto that quiet gratitude: green built to endure, never merely to impress. The shade of a debt repaid with style, and kept ever since.