The Road Well Travelled: Nick Mason
Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, who is 67, is a lifelong motorsport fan – and not just a fan, but a driver and a big-time collector too. Between 1979 and 1984, he competed five times in the Le Mans 24-hour race, with a best finish of 18th in 1979. He continues to race his huge collection of classic racing cars: he made his race debut in a 1935 Aston Martin Ulster and now owns – among many others – a 1978 Ferrari, as driven by Gilles Villeneuve. Nick’s book Passion for Speed, tells the story of 20th Century motorsport via 24 of the cars from his own collection.
Where did you get your passion for motoring?
My father made films about motor racing and used to race himself so I was brought up in a motor racing household – not just motor racing but old cars too. He used to drive a vintage Bentley so that was my idea of the best way to go driving. I also own my father’s Bentley – that Bentley was my earliest memory of motoring as he used to take me to Silverstone in it in the early 1950s. Those were the days when you drove the car to the race meeting – took the headlamps off and try to shed as much weight as possible and then race the car and then drove it home again.
As well as the exotic cars in your collection, you have fun cars. What’s the story behind your the Model T Laurel and Hardy/Coco the Clown car?
We think it was originally a Keystone Cops car and was then brought over to the UK and used by Coco the Clown. I bought it from Coco the Clown’s assistant about 15 years ago. It has everything you wouldn’t really need on a car. What it will do is that if you fall out of it, it will drive around on its own so you can jump back in again. It does tricks: you can play Grandmothers footsteps with it – it will follow you and then, every time you turn around, it stops.
How have you dealt with the turmoil/conflict in the band over the years?
The first thing to make clear is that this hasn’t been 40 years of World War III! There have been bust-ups but actually most bands have done that; lots of bands have lost people, sometimes publicly, sometimes less so. Actually if there is an enormously fractious event it resolves itself – it's not like years of friction. In the history of the band those things have lasted, in some cases, a few years – well there’s been the threat of litigation or something – but they get resolved and we revert to an easier way of life.
What was it like meeting the Beatles at Abbey Road when they were recording Sergeant Pepper?
This was our first six months of being a professional band and they had been doing it for a long time. They were the senior prefects and we were the new boys. They were heroes of ours. We were certainly into quite a lot of other bands at the time and things like Cream, Hendrix, etc. But the Beatles were probably the most important music people in the world at the time. We probably didn’t even realise it but the fact is they were changing all the rules to the music industry at the time, which was going to affect us in a very positive way. Sgt Pepper was the first album that outsold singles – which transformed the music industry’s thinking. The singles market was still important as a way of promoting the album but the albums became enormously important because they were far more valuable to the record companies.
What would it surprise people to know about you?
The most surprising thing is that I am married to a woman who flies a helicopter. People always assume that the bloke is the pilot and that women can’t possibly go motor racing or fly things or whatever but actually both my daughters have race licences and my wife who is also a very capable helicopter pilot. That is usually the thing that surprises people.
What was it like driving at night at Le Mans?
It was the one thing I really, really wanted to do. Le Mans was the pinnacle of my motor racing career because that was always where I had wanted to end up. In fact the first time driving at night was just great and still a really happy memory – just that thing of climbing in the car and the atmosphere of Le Mans at night was just fantastic – it compares very well with great music moments – the big festivals and big audience numbers. Quite nice to do something personal that’s just you and the car rather than you and your 60,000 closest friends.
Passion for Speed and Inside Out are available from tentenths.co.uk
[Photograph: Getty Images]
