Comfortably fundraising: Nick Mason’s Pink Floyd Golf heads to auction
Gavin has temporarily hung up his keyboard (something about being trapped in the real world), so he’s left the keys with me. Fingers crossed I don’t kerb a paragraph or two.
Iconic Auctioneers is lining up something rather special for the NEC Classic Motor Show sale on 8-9 November. Two charity lots will take centre stage, including a Volkswagen Golf Cabriolet Pink Floyd from none other than Nick Mason CBE. Yes, that Nick Mason. Drummer, racer, gentleman collector, purveyor of big drums and even bigger engines.
Volkswagen’s collaboration with Pink Floyd in the mid-90s produced one of the most curious, coveted and random specials of its era. Sound system stamped with the band’s logo. Upholstery riffing on the Division Bell Tour. Colour-coded bits everywhere. It was the moment Wolfsburg decided to turn the volume up to eleven without ever saying so.
This particular car comes with a dose of rock-royalty provenance. Mason bought it as a restoration project a few years back. The project remains… tuneful but unfinished. That feels appropriate for a car linked to a band famous for concept work. The auction lot includes a treasure chest of parts, waiting for a brave soul to finish the encore. No reserve either. A bold chord.
The real wow-factor sits in the memorabilia bundled with it. The lucky bidder will take home a pair of Mason-signed drumsticks, a signed copy of his racing-car tome Into the Red, four signed vinyl albums, a VW/Pink Floyd tour T-shirt, and signed DVDs including The Story of Wish You Were Here celebrating its 50th anniversary. If you’re a Pink Floyd devotee, this is several nervy bids away from a shrine. Mason has even signed the car itself, with photographic proof so nobody has to squint at the Sharpie.
Every penny from the sale, including the buyer’s premium, heads to the Harefield Healing Garden charity. Harefield Hospital is one of the UK’s leading heart and lung centres, and the garden offers a calming space for patients, families and staff. Mason puts it best: this is “a small gesture of thanks that can be of benefit to patients, visitors and staff,” and one deeply rooted in his family’s own experience.
If you want to see the Golf shine on, you can wish you were here by checking out the car before the auction in November.
