Top Gear’s former Stig Ben Collins would ‘go to work in an old balaclava’ to avoid identity leak

Top Gear’s former Stig, Ben Collins, has spoken out about his time as the man in the mysterious white suit.

The racing driver served the role from 2003 to 2010 and was responsible for driving some of the world’s most expensive and exotic supercars around the famous Dunsfold Aerodrome, also known as the ‘Top Gear Test Track.’

The Stig’s role was to be as anonymous as possible, with Collins explaining the extreme lengths he would go to in order to keep his identity a secret.

Speaking on the latest episode of the CarDealer Podcast, Collins told the hosts: “Right, if you want to keep this job, don’t tell anybody. I didn’t tell anyone and I would go to work in an old balaclava. I would slip that on when I was about a mile out. The security guard wasn’t too keen on that – and the crew also thought it was pretty strange – but after a few weeks, they got used to it.”

However, by the late 2000s, there were rumours about who the Stig was. The BBC decided to bring Michael Schumacher onto Top Gear as a smoke screen claiming ‘he was the Stig’, but Collins explains that it was too late, adding: “The whole point of being the Stig was being anonymous, but the BBC in their wisdom had announced my identity in the Radio Times, in the TV Guide, they did a front page thing asking “Who is the Stig?” and then inside was my profile. By that point, the newspapers had pieced it together. There was enough leakage to them, so they ran those stories in the nationals.”

He added: “So I handed in my notice and I thought it would be fair and a great idea to tell my story because I’d had such a great time.”