Did you guess right?
Ok, so the secret’s out … and as comedian David Schneider tweeted an hour or so ago, “I guess now we must replace the question “Who is the Stig?” with the question “Who is Ben Collins?”
Well we know that Mr Collins is 35-years-old, spent four years in the army, has acted as a stunt double in James Bond and has a fairly impressive track record when it comes to driving.
Fine, you can get all that from Wikipedia … but the thing that is really frustrating many Top Gear fans today is that they didn’t guess Collins was The Stig earlier.
Over the past few years many clues have emerged suggesting that the all-white clad racing supremo was Collins rather than, as many believed, a famous racing driver like Michael Schumacher or Damon Hill.
Even before the 2003 accounts for Collins Motorsport Ltd were revealed last week as stating, “In addition, driving services were also provided for the BBC mainly in the Top Gear programme which promotes Ben’s driving reputation and offers good long term prospects for continuing income”, there were other tips that you could have picked up.
Well, for a start, there was the 2008 photograph of the driver (left) where a well timed flash broke through The Stig’s usually ‘anonymity ensuring’ dark visor … the eyes looked quite a lot like those belonging to Collins, as the video concludes.
Also, there were the 2009 reports that Collins had been caught out ordering commerorative photographs of The Stig from a Bristol printers.
As if that wasn’t enough, then there was the voice … as we see here in this video (left) from early last year. When The Stig starts speaking on camera to Dutch television it turns out he doesn’t sound dissimilar to Collins.
In addition, Ben appeared as himself on Top Gear on several occasions (below).
Many are now asking, was there a knowing wink when he got picked to play in the car football match … could you see the smirk on his face when he took on the skateboarder? Well have a look at the videos and see for yourself … no … I couldn’t see anything either …
In fairness, including Collins in the show as himself was a masterstroke by the BBC, because who would ever suspect one of many professional racing drivers that featured on the show … haha, the joke was on us.
So now you’ve seen the clues, are you annoyed that you didn’t spot The Stig earlier … or are you going to pretend you were aware of his identity all along … just like me?
Meanwhile James May has told the Stig to return his overalls and promises he will be dealt with in an Absolute Radio interview today.
