At next month's Goodwood Festival of Speed, Audi plans to unveil their authentic reconstruction of a 1939 Auto Union Type D Dual Compressor. The single-seat roadster, a replica of the Grand Prix racer driven by the likes of Tazio Nuvolari and H.P. Müller, will be driven by none other than Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason. Mason'll have to tame the 420 HP V12, the mother-loving engine at the atom heart of the Type D, as it spins those skinny tires up the hill at Goodwood. Luckily, Mason isn't new to priceless classic race cars.
Pink Floyd's big drummer boy owns quite a few cars. OK, that's an understatement. Mason reportedly owns around 40 with "25-30" being what you'd call "serious." He's owned or still owns a Type 35 Bugatti, D-type Jaguar, Maserati 250F, Ferrari 250GTO, just to name a few. So we're pretty sure he'll feel comfortable handling the '39 replica.
Sure, he's a Brit driving a replica of an original Auto Union racer — a car engineered by Ferdinand Porsche, and commissioned by Adolf Hitler and the government of Nazi Germany. See, Nazis and Grand Prix Racing go way back. [via Carscoop, Times Online]