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The Stig is the mysterious "tame racing driver" of the popular BBC Automobile show Top Gear. His name derives from presenter Jeremy Clarkson's schooldays at Repton School: "new boys at Repton were always called Stig", presumably itself derived from "Stig of the Dump", a children's novel by Clive King written in 1963 or the race driver Stig Blomqvist. All shots of the Stig show the same racing overalls (black in the first two series, white from series 3 and onward) and a helmet (of matching colour), but never reveal his identity. On 2005's Revved Up DVD, Richard Hammond is shown in the "Top Gear Bunker" opening a cupboard where they supposedly "keep" the Stig. A dead looking figure in the Stig's racing overalls is shown lying in the cupboard. Similarly, when the hosts went to the Isle of Man to test out the Porsche 911, the BMW M6, and the Aston Martin V8 Vantage (2005), Jeremy Clarkson was dispatched to the airport to "pick up a special delivery" where the Stig is shown arriving on the baggage claim conveyor belt before being pushed out on a trolley by Clarkson. |
 The original Stig |
 Current Stig |
The Stig's primary role on the show is to serve as an unbiased standard on which to test cars. His major role is driving various cars around the Top Gear test circuit. The times he sets with these cars are kept on a scoreboard that keeps track of the fastest cars that have been tested.
| The easy listening, prog rock and baroque music the Stig supposedly listens to in the car is a perennial source of amusement to the presenters - in Series 8, the Stig also listens to language tapes. His second duty is the training of whoever is the show's Star In A Reasonably-Priced Car (originally a Suzuki Liana, now a Chevrolet Lacetti) that week. Although he never speaks, The Stig is credited as a presenter on the show. |  |
Facts and Rumours
While the Stig obviously has a racing background, his true identity has never been revealed by the Top Gear presenters. The intent is that he functions as an unbiased "standard" that can be used to test cars fairly. However, once Perry McCarthy's book, Flat Out, Flat Broke, was published in 2003, it became clear that he was the original Stig (from 2002 to 2003). McCarthy was a former Formula 1 driver and test driver for the Benetton, Arrows and Williams teams and also tested for BMW F1.
| In the first episode of the third series, the original Stig (McCarthy) was "killed off", with some spoof footage of the Stig supposedly driving off the end of the British aircraft carrier HMS Invincible after failing to brake in time. Some believe this was due to the uncovereing of his identity, when whilst scheduled to appear in the 2003 Le Mans 24hr Race he was shown in an episode supposedly shot the same weekend helping the Top Gear team as the Stig in a Citroen 2CV 24hr race. This prompted a change of dress and music, and the white Stig was introduced in the second episode of series 3, on November 2, 2003. Of course, due to the Stig's disguise, there is no reason why Top Gear could not use many drivers, according to availability. |  Perry McCarthy - The Stig |
Rumours that the Stig was former F1 driver Damon Hill were supposedly confounded when Hill appeared on Top Gear on June 26, 2005. He did the lap and got 1.46.3. However, when asked if he was the Stig, he didn't actually deny this, and some took his apparently rapid availability to appear on the show in another guest's absence to indicate further evidence that he was the Stig. Many racing drivers are often asked if they are the Stig by the public.
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It appears that some rarer, privately owned cars may be driven by their owner, masquerading as the Stig. This was the case for the Maserati MC12, privately owned by Frank Mountain, a successful property developer; the car was at the time the only one in the country. |
| Heikki
Kovalainen (the Renault F1 test driver) admitted to driving
the Renault R24 F1 car around the track in the 2004 series, clothed
as the Stig. In a Winter Olympics special episode of Top Gear, the Stig was also shown doing a ski jump using a ski mobile, suggesting that this may have been another person dressed as the Stig doing the extremely dangerous stunt. According to the Swedish tabloid newspaper Aftonbladet, the snowmobile driver performing the ski jump stunt was Dan Lang, a Swedish snowmobile cross driver. |
 Heikki Kovalainen |
| In
May 2006, the Stig lost control of the £415,000 Koenigsegg CCX
and ploughed through a tyre wall. Koenigsegg did accept that the car
suffered from a lack of rear downforce, and took the car back to Sweden
to fit a rear wing, in an attempt to rectify the problem. Later that month the Stig beat all other drivers (Including F1) in the Suzuki Liana "Star in a Reasonably Priced Car" challenge with a time of 1:44.4. |
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Perry "The Stig" McCarthy
Info and Interview
Perry McCarthy on life as 'The Stig!'
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He's
raced in Formula One, competed in the legendary Le Mans 24 hours and
battled for honours at Sebring, but in the career of Perry McCarthy
– dubbed by some as 'the world's unluckiest driver' –
one thing must surely stand head and shoulders above the rest.
And that thing? Taking on the role of the mysterious 'Stig' on popular British motoring show Top Gear. Crash.net took the chance to catch up with Perry recently, to talk about life as the 'Stig' and find out just how easy it is trying to teach a celebrity to become a race driver… |
Question:
Perry, alongside your long career in motorsport, you had another famous
role as 'The Stig' on Top Gear - I just wondered what it was like to have
that role.
Perry 'Stig' McCarthy:
It was great fun, there was some really good bits to it and the show is
run really well. Jeremy [Clarkson] is someone who I've always admired,
I think he's a fantastic broadcaster and a great journalist and I think
they bring a really different flavour to motoring in the UK.
I'm a big fan of the show and I did the first 22 programmes and it was a laugh. We tested all sorts of things from Pagani Zondas down to Minis and the celebrity aspect of it was a lot of fun as well, but for me it was time to move on as I had a race programme to contend with as well, so I've been there, seen it and done it and they've got someone else in now – I think it's a girl but I don't know. Anyway there is a new Stiggy now!
Question:
Now on Top
Gear they use a very hi-tech car with the celebrity drivers in the Suzuki
Liana – what was that like?
Perry 'Stig' McCarthy:
I think the Suzuki Liana was a fantastic choice of car because it came
down more to where to position the car around the circuit and you would
spend some time instructing the celebrity on how to do that. Because of
the nature of the vehicle, they wouldn't need to worry about fantastic
amounts of power coming in so they couldn't really get themselves into
too much trouble, so it was a really good choice of vehicle.
Question:
Was there any celebrity who
you found to be really hard work?
Perry 'Stig' McCarthy:
Yeah there was one in particular, Tara Palmer-Tompkinson, she was really
difficult, but everyone else was great, they really listened, really applied
themselves and were very competitive.
There were a lot of stand out people, like Jodi Kidd. She's great fun
as a person and was a very good driver, Jay Kay from Jamiroquai –
I know Jay really well and we've been on track loads of times together
– he's a good driver and he really knows what he is doing in a road
car around the track so they were good. But everyone else really tried
and recently those top times have been beaten by Simon Cowell so that's
great driving from Simon!
Question:
You've raced on some of the top circuits in the world during your career,
how would the Top Gear test track rank among them?
Perry
'Stig' McCarthy:
Well it wouldn't be right up there but then again it's not designed to
be like that! It's a nice little proving ground and because of the layout
of some of the corners we were able to get the car working dynamically
in certain ways which was a good stop check against some of the other
vehicles that we had around there.
As for holding
an event around there, you'd need to spend a lot of money on improving
the safety of it, and the other thing is that you could never race it
because the circuit design we have has got a crossover so anyone who was
hanging around at the back, you might end up meeting them after three
laps coming the other way!
Question:
And are we right in thinking that your time as 'The Stig' came to an end
when you flew off the end of an aircraft carrier?
Perry
'Stig' McCarthy:
Yeah, it was a great idea that they had about that, because we'd decided
to go our separate ways and Andy Wilman, who is the series editor and
I think it was Andy's idea, came up with the idea of the aircraft carrier
which was fantastic. They spent a lot of money on it and it just shows
that they do things properly, so it was a real kind of James Bond ending
to 'The Stig in Black' and the new one in white was reborn!
Question:
Just one final question Perry, some of the songs you had on in the car
were slightly dodgy. They weren't your choice were they?
Perry
'Stig' McCarthy:
Well the one I was a bit concerned about was 'Stand by your Man' –
but that was a just a bit of fun that the production team were having
and I think, again, it is just a really 'out there' kind of idea having
this racing driver who is anonymous in black and then coming in with this
soft, easy listening music, on top of a violent lap time – it was
loads of fun!
Julian Bailey
Some History
Julian Bailey (born 9 October 1961 in Woolwich, England)
was a Formula One driver who raced for the Tyrrell and Lotus teams. Although
born in the United Kingdom, he was raised in Spain, and became an accomplished
Formula Ford 1600 racer in Britain, winning the important Formula Ford
Festival at Brands Hatch. In 1986 he got his chance to race in Formula
3000 in a GA Motorsport Lola, in which he won his third F3000 race, becoming
the first British driver to win a race in the formula. This attracted
the attention of Ken Tyrrell, and Bailey was recruited to drive for the
Formula One team the following year. Unfortunately the car was very uncompetitive
and he didn't score even one point, team-mate Jonathan Palmer taking five.
In 1989 he joined the Nissan sports car factory team, and tried to get
back into Formula One in 1991, behind a Lotus. He finished sixth in the
San Marino Grand Prix but didn't retain his drive after Monaco. During
his F1 career he was entered in 20 Grands Prix, qualifying for seven at
a time when the grids were over-subscribed, and scored a total of one
championship point.
In 1993 he joined the Toyota BTCC team, finishing 5th in the championship, although his season is best remembered for his collision with team-mate Will Hoy, which flipped Hoy's car onto its roof. The next 2 seasons were less successful, although he outscored 1991 champion Hoy in both their seasons as team-mates. He has raced primarily in sports cars since, winning the FIA GT Championship in 2000. A Daily Express article has reported that Bailey is secretly "The Stig" (from BBC2's Top Gear) however Top Gear have never confirmed or denied this. |