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The Stig “unmasked”

British newspaper reveals details of who Top Gear's top secret is -but no names here.

According to the News of the World, the man behind The Stig is “married, lives quietly in a comfortable £300,000 home and was once terrified of driving.”

The helmeted, revered driver on the UK Top Gear reportedly learnt his trade in Formula First, GT Racing and Stock Cars, and almost made the grade as a Formula One driver.

Now in his 30s, he earns around £150,000 a year combining his Top Gear job with some stunt and test driving.

“This is the best-kept secret in motor racing and we want to keep it that way,” said a source. “No one will ever officially confirm his identity.”

So does anybody know, or care, who the ‘Aussie Stig’ is? After all, there’s really only one. Right?

Source: News of the World

9 Responses

  1. Typical of Murdoch dreck to go try ruin the fantasy for us.

    Next thing y’know, they’ll be threatening to “out” Santa, the Easter Bunny & the Tooth Fairy.

  2. The Stig’s identity isn’t a very well kept secret at all. Most fans have known who he is for years. I won’t mention his name (I’ll call him Mr X) as many people would rather not know but here are some of the ways his identity has been leaked, revealed and hinted at-

    1. During the 24 hours race at Silverstone Mr X was spotted wearing a driver’s wristband ID even though he was not mentioned by name on the official driver lists. The only driver allowed at the event to use an alias was the Stig.

    2. At a press conference, a newpaper managed to get a shot of the Stig’s eyes through his visor by angling a flash-bulb just right. They unmistakably belong to Mr X.

    3. Mr X was named in the official government report into Richard Hammond’s crash as a some-one who “worked closely with Top Gear as a high performance driver and consultant”.

    4. Mr X has appeared on TopGear several times as himself. The official TopGear website topgear.com accidentally posted a clip of one of these occasions with a blurb that called him “the Stig” instead of using his real name. That video has now been removed, but it was up for weeks before they realised and took it down.

    One more thing. In order to protect the Stig’s identity, the producers of TopGear say that there is more than one driver who fills the role. I believe that this is so that if he is ever revealed, then they can just say they no longer use that driver and keep the white Stig around instead of killing him off like they did with the black Stig. It is technically true though. It wasn’t Mr X who drove the snowmobile down that ski-ramp in the Winter Olympics special and it is rumoured that it was one of Renault’s test drivers who took their F1 car around the track in less than a minute.

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