The World Weeps as the Stig's Identity is Revealed

[NGS]

The Stig unmasked... by his own company accounts


Speculation about his identity has ranged from former Formula one champion Michael Schumacher to Mr Bean creator Rowan Atkinson.
But the seven-year mystery surrounding top Gear's masked test driver the Stig appears finally to be over.
Financial documents have been unearthed which link 35-year-old racing driver and stuntman Ben Collins to the secret role.

The Stig's unmasking comes after the Daily Mail last week revealed how he was locked in a legal battle with the BBC over plans to reveal his identity in his autobiography.
Lawyers warned that secrecy was essential to his role in the BBC2 programme.
The clue to his identity emerges in the accounts of his company, Collins Autosport.
It recorded a 'cornerstone year' in December 2003, a month after the white-clad Stig's first appearance on TV.
This was partly down to 'driving services provided for the BBC, mainly in the Top Gear programme', the accounts said.
Directors noted the work offered 'good long-term prospects for continuing income,' the Sunday Times reported.
Collins, who has doubled for Daniel Craig for stunts in a James Bond film, was named as a possible Stig after a builder claimed to have seen the distinctive white outfit at the driver's Bristol home.
But he has always refused to answer questions on the subject. Asked about it at the weekend, he said he was on his way to Hungary before adding: 'I can't speak to you. I'm going into a tunnel.'

Until now only a handful of BBC executives and the programme's presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May knew the identity of the Stig.
In June last year the seven-times Formula 1 champion driver Michael Schumacher dressed as the Stig and removed his helmet on the programme.

The BBC refused to confirm or deny if Schumacher really was the mystery driver, but the scene was widely regarded as a hoax.
A BBC spokesman said: 'It's no surprise that Ben Collins's company accounts show that he was driving for Top Gear as he has appeared on the programme as himself, for exam-example in the Mitsubishi evo challenge.
'Ben supplies his services as a driver himself and his company also supplies other drivers.
'There is nothing to be read into these company documents.'


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz...#ixzz0yJdQzFy7

It had to come someday, I just wish it was done right, with a proper reveal and build-up and whatnot. Also wish it hadn't been for the sake of making a buck.

Now half the fun is gone in the show.

[Ominous Gamer]

These only came to light after BBC went anal on blocking Stig's book from being published.
Serves them right.

EDIT:
BBC also lost that legal fight today.

[Hazir]

Gosh, it's almost as big news as when they decided to discontinue Big Brother in Holland.

[RandBlade]

These only came to light after BBC went anal on blocking Stig's book from being published.
Serves them right.

EDIT:
BBC also lost that legal fight today.

Bizarre logic. The Beeb only tried to get an injunction after they knew the identity was coming out, not vice-versa

[Ominous Gamer]

8/19/10
BBC files injunction to block autobiography.

BBC has called in lawyers to prevent the master of the Top Gear track from breaking his 'contractual' and 'confidentiality' obligations to the show.

They claim he's subject to a confidentiality agreement and unmasking himself in a book could spoil Top Gear for millions of fans.

8/23/10
Leaked financial documents show the Stig to be Ben Collins.

[Timbuk2]

Speculation has been that it was Ben for a number of years now.

Still, great shame that it came to this. Been following it closely.



~

The BBC created the Stig, they should have licence for and control over that creation.

[Timbuk2]

Profile: Ben Collins

BBC





Former Formula Three driver Ben Collins has won a legal fight to publish an autobiography in which he claims to be The Stig - the mystery driver on the BBC's Top Gear show. But who is he?

Read through Ben Collins' CV and it is easy to see how the term "action man" could have been invented just for him.

He is best known as a professional racing driver, but add to that child swimming star, former soldier, James Bond and Hollywood stunt man, journalist, presenter, triathlete and marathon runner.

The Bristol-born 35-year-old spent his first 10 years in California where his father worked.

He displayed natural sporting talent from an early age.

He won his first three heats at a California state swimming competition aged five, and became an Olympic standard swimmer for his age group by age nine, before returning to the UK.

Collins was still a teenager when he made his first foray into motor sports in 1994, and built a reputation as a fast and determined competitor.

He won prizes at various levels, starting out in Formula Ford, Formula Vauxhall Junior and the Formula Opel Winter Series, before progressing to Formula Three by 1996.

Sir Jackie Stewart, the three-time Formula One World Championship winner, tipped him as a future star and he impressed peers with his podium results, finishing fastest in his class in the 2001 Le Mans 24-Hour classic.

He has also tested for Formula One and driven in World Sportscars and European Ascar oval racing, winning six of 12 rounds in the latter.

Former F1 driver Martin Donnelly called him "an aggressive driver with phenomenal natural speed".

And his former F3 team manager Glenn Waters reportedly said: "I think Ben may well be the fastest driver I've ever run and that includes some class acts like Donnelly, Russell Spence and Damon Hill."

Last year, Collins continued to race competitively, becoming a driver for an Australian V8 Supercars team.

Away from the race track, Collins has worked as a precision driver in at least two Hollywood films.

He was a stunt double for Nicolas Cage in his 2007 film National Treasure: Book of Secrets, and then for Daniel Craig in the 2008 James Bond film Quantum of Solace.

He also presented Xtreme Teen Drivers on BBC Three in 2007 - a TV show trying to teach young boy racers to drive more safely.

Less is known about his private life and the timing of his military career.

According to the Gordon Poole Agency, which promotes his work as a public speaker on sport, Collins served in the Army for four years and keeps fit by competing in triathlons and the London Marathon.

He still lives in the city of his birth.

Quite a busy man int he.

[RandBlade]

8/19/10
BBC files injunction to block autobiography.

Err yeah. As I said the Beeb only tried to get an injunction after they knew the identity was coming out, not vice-versa

[Ominous Gamer]

then you totally misunderstood the significance of these documents coming to light now
in which case your replies to me make no sense... there is no bizarre logic or incorrect timelines.

[Catgrrl]

Oh, I thought that he was outed a long time ago...........maybe I just had heard rumors before.

Hooray for Netflix as we have been watching old episodes.

[RandBlade]

then you totally misunderstood the significance of these documents coming to light now
in which case your replies to me make no sense... there is no bizarre logic or incorrect timelines.

Are you not getting this? Had the Beeb not attempted to get an injunction then the book announcing who the Stig was would have been guaranteed. The fact it got leaked after is neither here nor there.

[Ominous Gamer]

Had the BBC used its head, they could have capitalized on this, instead of trying to draw out a deadend legal battle. You're missing that the BBC never really had control of keeping the Stig a secret, it was a mutually beneficial agreement. One side was obviously tired of getting short changed by not getting to pad his income with side deals like the hosts. Instead of working with that, the BBC went retarded. They wasted a golden opportunity at some good PR here. The leak and its timing has everything to do with it, it was clearly a bitch slap aimed at the BBC. The book is not published yet, the financial paperwork is

Collins wasn't the first Stig after all. BBC wanted to act like assholes in this ordeal, and all they did was draw more attention to what they didn't want out in the public. Now they (deservingly so) have ended up with the short end of the stick.

[RandBlade]

The Beeb thought it had a non-disclosure agreement. I don't know the legality of it, but obviously the court has decided to side with Collins. I would have thought that if he had signed a non-disclosure agreement then there's no guarantee that it would have been a deadend legal battle.