Crown

The sunday times seems to have found financial records suggesting that Formula three driver Ben Collins is "The Stig":

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/7958512/Stig-mystery-financial-documents-suggest-identity-of-Top-Gear-driver.html

A well known fact in the sportscar racing world (for quite some time).

BBC Top Gear: "The Stig. He’s ours..."

Top Gear comment by Andy Wilman, Executive Producer...

(27 August 2010)

Doubtless you’ll have read that the BBC and the book publishing people, HarperCollins, are now in a big legal battle over HarperCollins’ wish to publish an autobiography of the person who wears the Stig suit to work. The BBC has responded with a polite statement, but I must say I feel the urge to add my ten penn’orth about how we see things down at the Top Gear office.

First off, I had to laugh when I read the bit of the HarperCollins statement where it says: “We are disappointed that the BBC has chosen to spend licence fee payers’ money to suppress this book…”. “Disappointed??!!” Give me strength.

“Disappointed” is the word viewers use when they think Top Gear has wasted licence payer money on something stupid or rubbish, and when viewers use it, they usually mean it from the heart. Big book publishing companies worth hundreds of millions do not sit in their boardrooms going: “We are so disappointed”. If I could apply my patented Reality Check (It’s like Spell Check but I haven’t quite invented it yet) to their statement, it should actually read: “We are deeply irritated that the BBC has chosen to spend licence fee payers’ money trying to protect something that belongs to them, as we were hoping to cash in on it in time for Christmas, even though in the eight years the Stig has existed, we’ve contributed absolutely bugger all to the character’s creation or development.”

The fact is, the “waste of licence payer’s money” argument gets trotted out many times as a way of attacking the BBC, but the reality is this: the BBC is a massive organisation. It’s naïve to think it can only ever spend money on cameras, tape for the cameras, Daleks or anything else that contributes directly to what ends up on screen. The BBC also has the right to spend money on protecting the intellectual property it created, because the truth is that all that stuff – the Stig, the Tardis, the Blue Peter dog – does belong to the licence payer, and not to some opportunists who think they can come along and take a slice when they feel like it.

As you can tell I’m quite cross at the moment, but there’s plenty to be cross about. Last week, instead of working on the next series, I had to go to court. If you go to court you have to look smart, which meant I had to dig my suit out of the back of the wardrobe, and the last time I wore that suit George Michael could still drive in a straight line. So on Monday there I was, dressed like somebody who works behind the till at NatWest, having to listen to people from HarperCollins telling me that they have the right to reveal who the Stig is. Well actually, that’s tosh. The whole point of the Stig is the mystique – the bizarre characteristics he has, the wonderment created about what he might think, feel, do or look like. Kids adore the conceit, and I believe adults, although they know it’s a man in a suit (or is it?), gladly buy into the whole conceit because they find it entertaining. Even the papers, who love to make mischief, have kept everyone guessing over the years because they acknowledge that viewers like the Stig secrecy thing.

Anyway, HarperCollins have decided none of that is as important as their profits, so if you get your Christmas ruined by one of the best and most harmless TV secrets being outed, you can rest easy in the knowledge that by contrast, HarperCollins’ executives will be enjoying a fantastic Christmas.

So why are we fighting in court? Well, obviously we want to protect the Stig’s anonymity for the reasons I’ve just outlined. Also, it’s an issue of trust. Everyone who’s ever worked on Top Gear has kept the Stig thing a secret, and the person who wears the suit has signed confidentiality agreements to do the same. So talk about what you like in your own life, but not the bit you agreed not to. Your word is supposed to mean something.

Some of you will say we’re also trying to protect a brand the BBC makes money out of. You’re right there too. The Stig does make money for BBC Worldwide, which is a business, and some of it is invested back into the business, some of it is paid out in dividends, and crucially, some of it goes back into funding the TV show. And the show needs that money, ‘cos this ain’t a cheap piece of telly. And actually, while I’m on the money point, BBC Worldwide are also picking up half the tab for this case, so it’s by no means just licence fee payers’ money being spent.

Inevitably, Fleet St has endless opinions on what BBC Worldwide should do with its money. Only yesterday morning Stephen Glover wrote a very robust piece in the Daily Mail about Top Gear’s commercial affairs. But since he can’t actually count up how many shows we make a year (it’s 14, not 8 Mr Glover), I’m not sure I’d trust the rest of his maths. Besides that, like every outsider he doesn’t know the details of any confidentiality clauses we have going, he doesn’t know about Top Gear internal relationships, and he doesn’t know who the Stig is, and sadly I can’t help put him right because we’re in the middle of a load of legal tussles, and I wouldn’t want to anyway, because it’s a secret.

Speaking of which, I’ll be back in court sometime soon, looking once more like an office junior at Foxtons, and we’ll be fighting our corner. If we lose at this stage, it won’t be over but the book will be published and the papers will have a field day with a barrage of headlines about “Humiliating Climbdowns” etc. But so be it. Bring it on. Do you want a BBC that runs away from a snidey headline, or one that fights to protect its belongings? What’s the saying? “It’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees”. A bit dramatic I know, but the fact is, the ramshackle, dysfunctional family that is the Top Gear team, from the newest runner right up to Jeremy, Richard and James, has worked bloody hard for many years to make the Stig something worth caring about, and that includes protecting it from a bunch of chancers.

PS: Normally we love it when you give us your comments, but as you imagine we’re in legal land at the minute so I’m afraid it’s a one-way street on this one. Anyway, now you know how we feel. 

The-Stig-Is-Ours_Top-Gear-blog-by-Andy-Wilman

I don't really care what unknown random dude he turns out to be. The rest of the world does not care. he signed to be the stig and that's what he should be. This breaking of contact for profit is lame and will hurt the TV show indefinitely.

indeed shifting is ancient technology - so is a fuel burning engine..  I happen to like both :) 

Pretty low and unloyal if you ask me, if he took the job signing a confidentiality agreement and knowing it was part of the job to remain anonimous (and knowing that thats part of the charm of the stig, without it the concept of the stig makes no sense) then he should take it to his grave. The stig made him, he did not make the stig. Any other pro-driver would have been able to do the exact same job, he did not bring anything personal into the character since the character is... anonimous, faceless and fictitional. Not cool Mr.Stig 

--

Carlos from Spain:

Pretty low and unloyal if you ask me, if he took the job signing a confidentiality agreement and knowing it was part of the job to remain anonimous (and knowing that thats part of the charm of the stig, without it the concept of the stig makes no sense) then he should take it to his grave. The stig made him, he did not make the stig. Any other pro-driver would have been able to do the exact same job, he did not bring anything personal into the character since the character is... anonimous, faceless and fictitional. Not cool Mr.Stig 

 No character?

Eunice:

Carlos from Spain:

Pretty low and unloyal if you ask me, if he took the job signing a confidentiality agreement and knowing it was part of the job to remain anonimous (and knowing that thats part of the charm of the stig, without it the concept of the stig makes no sense) then he should take it to his grave. The stig made him, he did not make the stig. Any other pro-driver would have been able to do the exact same job, he did not bring anything personal into the character since the character is... anonimous, faceless and fictitional. Not cool Mr.Stig 

 No character?

 

That wasn't character. That was skill. 

Skill was part of what he was paid for under the terms of his contract. Another part was the maintaining of confidentiality regarding his identity.  

fritz

STIG OF THE DUMPED...

(29 August 2010)

Top Gear's star replaced in legal row...

Ben Collins has been dumped by the BBC after being unmasked as Top Gear's The Stig - and he has already been replaced.

Our exclusive pictures show the new Stig - the show's "tame racing driver" - in trademark white jumpsuit and crash helmet at a Top Gear Live event at the Nürburgring racing circuit in Germany on Friday.

Meanwhile, 1,100 miles away, Collins was snapped pushing his daughters Izzy, three, and Scarlett, 18 months, in toy cars near their home in the West Country.

The replacement Stig - whose identity is obviously being kept a closely-guarded secret - has been brought in a week after Formula 3 driver Collins' identity was revealed amid a High Court battle over his autobiography.

Bbc bosses claim the book - due out on September 16 - is in breach of a confidentiality agreement which Collins signed, to keep his name a secret.

The BBC insists that keeping The Stig's identity a mystery is crucial to his daredevil role as test driver for Top Gear, which is watched by 350million viewers around the world. Publishers HarperCollins hit back, accusing the Beeb of squandering licence-fee payers' money on expensive legal action. But the show's executive producer Andy Wilman accused HarperCollins of chasing profits to expose a "harmless" TV secret.

Collins - who has worked as a stunt double for James Bond star Daniel Craig - has played the elusive masked driver since 2003.

Clues to his identity were uncovered in accounts for his company, Collins Auto-Sport, in December the same year. In it were details of income derived from "driving services for the BBC, mainly in the Top Gear programme".

A message posted on the official Top Gear website boasts that the Nürburgring event features "some of the World's greatest precision drivers, as well as Top Gear's very own tame racing driver - The Stig".

Asked about the legal row yesterday, ousted Ben Collins said: "I am not allowed to talk about it."

Last week the show's original Stig lifted the lid on his life on the show in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Mirror.

Former Formula 1 driver Perry McCarthy, 49, said: "At first it was great fun.

"I lost count of the times I would be standing in a bar and some guy would be going, 'Of course it's Michael Schumacher.' I never said anything."

STIG-DUMPED-BY-BBC_News-Article

fritz:

Eunice:

Carlos from Spain:

Pretty low and unloyal if you ask me, if he took the job signing a confidentiality agreement and knowing it was part of the job to remain anonimous (and knowing that thats part of the charm of the stig, without it the concept of the stig makes no sense) then he should take it to his grave. The stig made him, he did not make the stig. Any other pro-driver would have been able to do the exact same job, he did not bring anything personal into the character since the character is... anonimous, faceless and fictitional. Not cool Mr.Stig 

 No character?

 

That wasn't character. That was skill. 

Skill was part of what he was paid for under the terms of his contract. Another part was the maintaining of confidentiality regarding his identity.  

 Exactly 

And now what we all want to know is... so who is the new stig?....... 

This time it's definitely Michael Schumacher...

"Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out."

I dunno Barrichello made an impression

indeed shifting is ancient technology - so is a fuel burning engine..  I happen to like both :) 

Atzporsche:

I dunno Barrichello made an impression

Did he ever.

http://www.phrog.co.uk

BBC Loses Ruling to Keep Secret Identity of Top Gear’s ‘Stig’...

(1 September 2010)

British Broadcasting Corp. lost a motion to block News Corp.’s HarperCollins from disclosing the identity of the “Stig,” a race driver who appears on the broadcaster’s show “Top Gear.”

High Court Judge Paul Morgan refused to grant an order to keep the character’s true identity secret which the BBC’s lawyers requested at a closed hearing in London.

“Today’s judgment does not prevent the BBC from pursuing this matter to trial,” the broadcaster said in a statement outside of court.

The BBC is suing over the publisher’s planned autobiography of the Stig, HarperCollins has said. Two weeks ago, the Sunday Times reported the Stig is a Formula 3 driver named Ben Collins. Collins attended today’s hearing.

“Top Gear” is one of the UK's most popular shows. Episodes in its latest series attracted an average of 5.3 million viewers, a 20 percent audience share, according to the BBC. Eight of the 10 most-watched shows on the BBC’s iPlayer download service in 2009 were episodes of “Top Gear,” the Times reported. In the show, the Stig character wears white overalls and a white helmet with a black visor that he always keeps down, obscuring his face.

“The judge has said he is not going to grant an injunction in this case,” Robin Shaw, a lawyer for HarperCollins, said. “Reasons are to follow and will be given in a private judgment.”

The case is British Broadcasting Corporation vs HarperCollins & ors, No. HC10C02684, High Court of Justice Chancery Division.

BBC-Loses-Ruling-to-Keep-Secret-Identity-of-Stig_Bloomberg-article

The British Broadcorping Castration is backing a loser on this one..

"Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out."

+1

Once The Sunday Times had revealed the Stig's real name, I never expected the BBC to win an injunction against publication of the Stig's autobiography by HarperCollins. The horse had already bolted - no point trying to close the stable doors...

AFAIK Ben Collins has been dropped as the Stig - so he is obviously keen to cash in while he can - he may not earn a salary like that again

 
RT Moderator - 997.1 Carrera S GT Silver/Cocoa, -20mm/LSD, PSE, short shifter, SportDesign rims, Zuffenhausen collection

easy_rider911:

+1

Once The Sunday Times had revealed the Stig's real name, I never expected the BBC to win an injunction against publication of the Stig's autobiography by HarperCollins. The horse had already bolted - no point trying to close the stable doors...

AFAIK Ben Collins has been dropped as the Stig - so he is obviously keen to cash in while he can - he may not earn a salary like that again

...according to a little birdie within the Beeb, the route of the problem is that the driver formerly working as The Stig will earn significantly MORE from an autobiography than from working for Top Gear!!! It seems that working as a daily driver for Clarkson, May, Hammond and Wilman doesn't entitle Stig to similar compensation...

...maybe Stig should have negotiated for a speaking role!

 If you have a contract and gave his word he should honor it, even if he gets offered more money latyer on, especially if the reason for getting more money is because of something Top Gear created, and not something that he had before he came into the show or brought with him. Top Gear created the stig, he only had to drive (something he and thousands of pro drivers could of done exactly the same as him), he didn't have to act, to speak, the character didn't even use his image since he was always disguised... and now he wants to cash into Top Gear's intellectual property, the character of the Stig. I sincerely hope the biography tanks and he gets much less than expected, I for one would not buy or read that book.

BBC on the other hand should move on, the secret is out so the ship has sailed on trying to censor anything. The more the BBC fights it and goes on the media, the more publicity this guy and the publisher's are getting IMO.

--

Spot on Carlos...

"Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out."

John H:

Spot on Carlos...

 

+1

Next....

http://www.phrog.co.uk

+ Another 1.  In these enlightened times, perhaps its now time for a green Stig

GR:

+ Another 1.  In these enlightened times, perhaps its now time for a green Stig

Some say, he is enlightened, some say he should be green, all we know...

Some say, he is smarter then Obama, some say he should be green, all we know is he is not a backstabber. lol

indeed shifting is ancient technology - so is a fuel burning engine..  I happen to like both :) 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11151777

"Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out."

"Stig was SAS hero..."

No more mystery nice guy ... Ben Collins aka The Stig

RACING driver Ben Collins, unmasked yesterday as Top Gear mystery man The Stig, is a former member of the SAS. Ben trained SAS heroes in daring "escape and evade" driving skills while serving with the regiment, The Sun can reveal.

Millions of viewers have seen the race ace coaching celebrities on how to achieve the fastest time around a TV circuit in Top Gear's reasonably-priced car.

But sources close to the special forces unit - motto Who Dares Wins - last night told how he also passed on his expertise to British troops. And they revealed they had known his secret identity as The Stig ever since he landed the job on the BBC's flagship motoring show in 2003 - even though fans were in the dark.

Winning driver ... Ben Collins leaves court

Collins, 35, whose face was hidden from viewers by his race helmet's tinted visor, trained in hand-to-hand combat with the SAS before passing on his driving skills.

He was axed from his TV role last night after winning a legal bid to reveal his identity by publishing his memoirs. Beeb bosses had claimed the stunt driver was bound by a confidentiality agreement and that revealing The Stig's true identity would ruin viewers' fun.

Behind you! ... Stig with Top Gear trio

But after a two-day private hearing at London's High Court, Mr Justice Morgan refused to grant an injunction which would stop publishers HarperCollins releasing The Man In The White Suit in two weeks.

Insiders said sports car ace Collins, from Bristol, would be given the push when the series returns for its 16th series later this year. One said: "Bosses are livid. There's no way they'll welcome him back."

"He's not a full-time employee, just contracted on a per-series basis, so it'll be easy not to renew his deal."

Badge of honour ... SAS emblem

Producers are still deciding whether to axe The Stig entirely or bring him back as someone else.

Collins, who replaced black-clad Stig Perry McCarthy, rushed from court at one point to visit wife Georgina who had just given birth to their third child Cassius. And with his TV identity finally made public last night, The Sun can detail his proud military past.

Collins served as a member of the renowned 23 SAS, the regiment of highly-trained reservists. There, chiefs quickly began using him to pass on his driving skills.

One fellow SAS member said: "We've known he was The Stig all along - it has been a standing joke within the regiment. He worked as a course instructor in Hereford."

"On the driving tracks he helped pass on his knowledge of high-speed escape and evade tactics."

Weapon

Sun security expert and former SAS legend Andy McNab said: "Having the best driving skills are a vital part of SAS training. They need to know how to use a vehicle as a form of escape and also a weapon."

Star pals ... Stig with Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise

"The SAS also need to know how to drive safely at high speeds, and that's where The Stig would come in handy. Anyone within the Regiment with the skills he has would have been seized on straight away."

Only a handful of people on Top Gear knew the identity of The Stig - including hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May.

Last night HarperCollins called the court ruling "a victory for freedom of speech", while a BBC spokeswoman said the Corporation had not ruled out pushing for damages.

Critics blasted the Beeb for spending tens of thousands of pounds of licence fee-payers' cash on the case. MP Phillip Davies, a member of the House of Commons culture select committee, said: "I fully expected the BBC to lose the case."

"Pursuing a case they have virtually no chance of winning is completely futile because his name was out there."

A Stig's life

BEN Collins was born in Bristol but spent his first ten years in California where his dad worked. He became a junior Olympic standard swimmer by the age of nine but at 18 launched his driving career in Formula Ford. On his debut at Silverstone he clocked up a record time on his first lap. Within four years he was in Formula 3. Former World champ Sir Jackie Stewart tipped him as a future star.

In 2001 he raced at the Le Mans 24-hour classic — and for four hours, in the rain, was fastest in his class. He has also driven in British ASCAR oval racing and in 2003 won six of 12 rounds. In 2009 Ben became a driver for an Australian V8 Supercars team.

He was also a stuntman driving in 2008 Bond movie Quantum Of Solace.

Rise of secret Top Gear racer

2002 - BLACK-clad Stig starts on Top Gear. Under helmet is driver Perry McCarthy
2003 - PERRY outs himself and black Stig is “killed off”. White Stig replaces him
2005 - RUMOURS over F1’s Mark Webber after Clarkson gives him I Am Stig T-shirt
2006 - EX-world F1 champ Damon Hill appears on show and jokes he may be Stig
2008 - STIG collects Top Gear’s National TV Award for best factual programme
2009 - F1 star Michael Schumacher is “revealed” as Stig in a stunt by Clarkson
2010 - THE Stig greets show’s biggest ever guests — Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz

Stig-was-SAS-hero_article-link

"And the Stig is..."

James May couldn't bear the stigma of being The Stig...

(2 September 2010, by James May)

Captain Not So Slow poses...

I'll be perfectly honest here: when the producer outlined the idea to me, I thought he was overdoing it. I thought the conceit would be exposed by its own improbability.

The main job involved driving around a track at extremely high speed, since that was what I was good at, but – and this is where it became tricky – I would do this anonymously, and only ever appear in a racing suit and helmet. I'd be called Stig.

Meanwhile, to disguise my identity, I'd also appear occasionally on the programme as myself, where I would cultivate an air of indifference to speed and feign an inability to remember which way racing circuits went.

It was a very clever strategy. In time, the nickname Captain Slow would "emerge" and I would begin to espouse the doctrine of "Christian Motoring", which was handed to me in a pub one night, printed on rice paper and sealed in a plain envelope, and later eaten.

I would be given money to buy the "wrong" Ferrari, and my own racing overalls would be red or blue and a laughably bad fit. My crash helmet would have comedy goggles on top and would show my baffled face clearly.

Learning all this was like being trained as a Cold War double agent. The slightest slip could expose me. As global enthusiasm for unmasking the Stig reached fever pitch, I even had to curtail perfectly natural habits, such as gathering up lurid tail slides in an old Porsche on deserted roundabouts, using a dab of "oppo".

One evening, during a solitary walk in which I was thinking my way around the Nürburgring, a dark-coated man appeared at my side and told me I needed a new car. Then he was gone. The next day there was a Fiat Panda parked outside the door, keys in the ignition, V5 in my name on the passenger seat. I knew what I had to do.

It was a brilliant deception, but with one flaw. The secretive underworld devoted to exposing the Stig – which numbers among its members judges, politicians of all parties, academics, poets, military leaders and the heads of police forces – had noticed that, as with Michael Jackson and his sister, I never appeared on screen at the same time as him. The producers responded with a handful of simple scenes in which I did – a game of Top Trumps, for example – because the Stig was now an animatronic version made by Jeremy in his own workshop.

Eventually, inevitably, I couldn't cope with it. I didn't know who I was when I was talking to people, or if I could even speak at all.

I became depressed and started making a new series about drinking.

I told the producer I didn't want to be the Stig any more. They should find a new one – I didn't need to know who it was. I could carry on as Captain Slow.

I could be two people, but not three, and especially not if one of them was from another planet and had nipples on his knees.

The producer could see I was becoming the weak link in a chain of which I formed every link. Quietly, a new man slipped into "The Suit" and I agreed to say nothing.

It was at this precise point that the media believed it had stumbled upon the identity of The Stig. Somehow, they arrived at the name Collins, which is not an unusual name, let's face it.

But these so-called "reporters" from a so-called "newspaper" found a man named something-Collins who happened to own a white crash helmet, put two and two together and came up with an internationally unrecognised children's television character.

In fact this Mr Collins is simply a pizza delivery boy dreaming of motorsport glory, like so many of them.

He is now attempting to steal my former non-identity and I can't say anything, except in the meaningless chirrup of a BASIC programme from the cassette tape machine of a Sinclair ZX-81.

The tragedy is that the press is half right, but in this case being half wrong is as catastrophic as having your duelling pistol at half cock. Yes, the new Stig is called Collins, but his name is Michael Collins.

You will remember him as the command module pilot of Apollo 11, he who orbited the moon while Armstrong and Aldrin descended to the surface and was at one point the loneliest man in history.

He was the obvious candidate for my old job: good at going around and around by himself, and able to talk on the radio. Plus, he already had a white suit. He is the Stig.

These days, I'm Spartacus. 

And-the-Stig-is_James-May-article

This stig stuff is childish. Who cares. A few lame lines by Jeremy is creating IP? Can't be bothered to read all the fine print, but did Collins pay go up along with the other 3? IOW did he share in the success he helped create?

racerx:

This stig stuff is childish. Who cares. A few lame lines by Jeremy is creating IP? Can't be bothered to read all the fine print, but did Collins pay go up along with the other 3? IOW did he share in the success he helped create?

Three times no.

My guess is the secrecy around the stig was "invented" just to keep him inexpensive.

Collins might still be violating his contract or unlawfully using BBC trademarks by his book. I hope he does well. 

Eunice:

My guess is the secrecy around the stig was "invented" just to keep him inexpensive.

 

HAHA.... you are right! 

Collins will be racing this weekend at Silverstone in round 10 of the LMS

www.lemans-series.com/en/s52_circuits/s52p06_engages.php