Top fear: The Stig gears up in drive to promote higher fuel efficiency

BEN Collins makes you sick.

It’s not the film star looks, the effortless charm, the celebs he’s worked with or the endless supply of shiny new motors he gets his paws on.

No, it’s the way he takes a corner at too many miles per hour so that your head swaps places with your stomach while the rest of your carcass holds onto the roll cage for what’s left of dear life.

Oh sure, you emerge from the passenger seat pronouncing the experience simply delightful. But then you head for the nearest pile of tyres masquerading as a crash barrier and put them to their real use, which is shielding you from public view while you get reacquainted with your lunch.

Racing driver Collins is better known, or unknown really, as The Stig, the mystery driver who tested cars and celebrities’ handling ability on the BBC Top Gear show from which he recently parted company in a dispute over how his heavily protected identity was revealed.

It’s all a bit complicated, and currently before the civil courts, but suffice to say Collins is moving on — doing nought to 60 in a wink. He was at Mondello Park yesterday at a Topaz initiative aimed at promoting fuel-efficient driving.

That means dumping the golf clubs or whatever jetsam normally resides in the boot, taking down the roof rack that hasn’t been used since summer 2004, going easy on the air conditioning and keeping a light foot on the accelerator while using the highest gear possible.

For a man who isn’t happy unless an engine is roaring like a wounded tyrannosaurus, the rev counter is about to explode and the tyres are on fire, being asked to drive fuel efficiently was a huge challenge.

But he accepted it manfully and after demonstrating what not to do in a worried-looking Mazda 2, he then took the little runaround on a much more well-behaved jaunt around the track.

After much musing, there followed the announcement that Collins had proved you can use up to 62.5% less fuel if you drive efficiently rather than effusively.

Then in an effort to salvage his image amid accusations of gentility, he took to frightening the sandwiches out of the gathered journalists.

As he slid sideways round a bend at G-force, tore up a grass verge and scattered every crow and seagull for several continents, he nonchalantly stuck up a thumb to inquire as to the state of health of his passenger before casually dropping down another gear and putting his foot through the floor.

It didn’t ruffle a hair on his movie star head. Makes you sick.