The Stig: Unlikely star slips into top gear

ALL this story lacks is a bare-knuckle fist-fight with volcanic eruptions of broken glass and missing teeth followed by a night cooling off in the clanger.

It already has the other key ingredients of a classic blokeish caper – men, motors, madcap antics, money, machismo, fame and a feud.

So, when Ben Collins, one of the stars of the saga, makes an appearance, it’s natural to expect a fair bit of posturing – a grunting, shoulders-hunched, veins-bulging, eyes-narrowed, shape-throwing kind of display. However, soft-spoken, unfailingly polite and extremely relaxed vision of clean living who nods his hellos with a warm smile seems to have been horribly miscast.

Collins, a 35-year-old father-of-three from Bristol, was the unsung hero of Top Gear, the BBC car show that has become one of the world’s most successful television programmes. Broadcast in about 120 countries with an estimated international audience of 350 million, it has made its three presenters, the acerbic Jeremy Clarkson, the eccentric James May and the accident-prone Richard Hammond as recognisable in some parts as Beckham and Ronaldo.

What makes the story sound all the more improbable is that the fourth member of the team was an anonymous guy in a white racing driver suit with a full-face helmet who did most of the serious driving and regularly accompanied celebrities (Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise among them) on test drives.

He had no name and no voice and Clarkson nicknamed him The Stig, but as his fan base grew, so too did the intrigue over his identity. What began as a gimmicky sideshow became an integral part of the show and the value of keeping the identity guessing game going mushroomed.

There had already been a black-suited Stig who took a wrong turning and left the show after a year, but, with The Man in the White Suit, as Collins has titled his just-released autobiography, Top Gear hit gold.

For eight years, their new Stig maintained his mystique and his personal popularity rose in tandem with the show so that every kid wanted an official “My Dad Is The Stig” T-shirt.

But by early this year, Collins was increasingly being linked to the role and then came last month’s autobiography – already a bestseller – and the gloves, as well as the rest of the suit, were off.

BBC is pursuing Collins through the courts for breach of contract. Clarkson has been lambasting his former colleague like he was an early Lada and fans are divided between those who feel The Stig spoiled the party and those who have vowed to follow him to his new presenter post on rival show, Fifth Gear.

So is Collins sorry he didn’t resist those urges to put his life story on paper?

“In a way I think I stayed too long,” he says of his enforced departure from Top Gear. “We tried very hard to maintain the anonymity. We did it for eight years. But in 2009 the writing was on the wall with all the internet speculation that was going on,” he says.

Bizarrely, BBC’s own listing magazine, Radio Times, named Collins as one of the most likely Stigs when it ran a “guess the identity” quiz and he says that gave other publications all the encouragement they needed to shake him out.

“There was an informal embargo that other press outlets respected but that just went once the Radio Times put my name out as a main suspect. It was a moment of shock and relief when it all came out because there was a lot of pressure. It was pressure in a fun way but it had to come to an end. Too many people knew [that he was The Stig].

“I had to have insurance documents in my own name – everyday stuff that you can’t get around. It was all very well going to work in a balaclava and parking in a field, but all it took was for someone to check up my number plate. So the car trade got it [his name] and that spread into motor racing and that’s the loosest tongues in the planet. But people had to know. You do tend to tell your wife why you’re away for three months at a time. Even spies tell their wives why they are away,” he explains.

The BBC have been far less philosophical and Collins says he has found their reaction “very disappointing” given the loyalty he says he gave to them.

“I was paid by the day, but I had to defend who I was 24-7. My predecessor lasted only one year and he was apparently forever getting carried away and excited and trying to meet the celebrities which you naturally want to do. I never did that. I was pretty fastidious and stayed out of things – much to the detriment of my racing career.”

He doesn’t sound bitter, however, but has the look of a man who’s just been freed from rush-hour traffic and been given the Acatama desert in which to run wild.

He’s busy getting his racing career back on track, as well as preparing for Fifth Gear and enjoying getting to know the latest addition to his family, his six-week-old son.

The parent in him quickly betrays itself when he’s asked if he’d mind his little ones following in his footsteps. A look of slight horror flashes on his face before he declares himself supportive of their future choices.

“But a racing career is not straightforward,” he adds.

And what about all those other parents trying to hide the car keys after their teenage son has come away from the TV set looking more revved up than a well-oiled Bugatti?

“It was never the message of Top Gear for people to behave recklessly or hurt themselves. It’s unfortunate that people who don’t need too much inspiration to do the wrong thing can find that inspiration in us. People need to use their own common sense.”

Common sense – now there’s something you don’t associate much with hurtling around the place in souped-up tin cans, sliding, skidding, spinning and speeding like you’re trying to evade time itself.