Nick Mason: The Pink Floyd Drummer Who Raced Cars and Wrote the Band's Definitive History

Most people know Nick Mason as Pink Floyd’s drummer and the only member to play on every single album. But his real parallel career has been as a serious automotive historian and competitor. In 1991, he co-drove a Jaguar C-Type in the legendary La Carrera Panamericana road race across Mexico, an event that became the subject of a documentary film of the same name. The documentary is notable not just for the racing footage but because Pink Floyd—specifically Mason and David Gilmour—contributed new music specifically for the film, turning a dangerous rally into a surprisingly tight intersection of drumming and driving.

Mason’s deeper passion for cars led him to write Into the Red (with Mark Hales) about his own car collection, and later Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd—the definitive, first-person account of the band’s chaotic rise and creative peaks. While Inside Out is a music book, Mason’s voice in it reflects the same patient, observational approach he brings to restoring vintage Ferraris: he’s more interested in how things work and how they got built than in drama. His commitment to both worlds—crafting rhythmic foundations for Dark Side of the Moon and meticulously maintaining a 250 GTO—makes him a