7:30 am, September 5, 2025
Top Gear’s former Stig has revealed the extreme lengths he went to in order to keep his identity a secret at the height of the show’s popularity.
Ben Collins served as the BBC’s mysterious man in the white suit from 2003 to 2010 before numerous media leaks eventually led to his departure.
However, the racing driver has now revealed just how far he went to try and prevent his identity being revealed.
Appearing on the most recent episode of the Car Dealer Podcast, the 50-year-old said he would enter and leave Top Gear’s Dunsfold base wearing a balaclava, which he wore when he got within a mile of the airfield.
He would also park his car ‘in the middle of nowhere’, leaving behind anything which carried his name.
He also kept his identity a secret, even from his family, for fear of being found out.
Speaking to hosts James Baggott and Jon Reay, Collins said: ‘I thought: “Right, if you want to keep this job, don’t tell anybody,” and it’s a fairly simple and effective rule.
‘I didn’t tell anyone and I would go to work with 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.
‘I’d go and park my car in the middle of nowhere, ditch my wallet, anything with a credit card or a name on it, and then shuffle in quietly and try and not be seen where I was getting changed and all that sort of stuff.
‘Originally, I was changing in the pilot’s changing room [at Dunsfold], which was quite cool, and then we got moved around to a Portacabin but I was good at getting changed and not being seen.
‘Once you let information out, that’s game over and so eventually that is how it unraveled because it’s stupid stuff like you have to sign an insurance form and you can’t just write “The Stig”. They’re not happy with that and you have to put your name in.’
Collins’ identity eventually exploded into the public consciousness when he wrote an autobiography about his time on the show, which was released just after his departure.
The BBC attempted to use an injunction to block the book’s publication, with the case even ending up in the High Court.
Judges eventually sided with Collins and the book went on to be a best-seller, leading former colleague James May to jokingly label him ‘Judas Iscariot’ when Top Gear’s next season aired.
For Collins however, the writing had been on the wall for some time after multiple stories appeared in the press outing him as The Stig.
Reflecting on his exit from the programme, Collins said: ‘It was the best job in the world. It was fantastic but there was always this spectre of being fired. That was always there in the background: “Don’t do this or you get fired. Don’t do this or you get fired”.
‘After a while, I was still on effectively a one-day at a time contract, which I was fine, because I get it – if you become known, your days are numbered – and they’re going to have to get someone else.
‘The whole point of 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.
‘We limped on – Schumacher very kindly came in and did a big smoke screen saying that he was the Stig – but really I could sense the writing on the wall.
‘I was starting to hear it fairly bluntly from people at BBC Worldwide. You just know when you’re either going to get canned or it’s time to leave.
‘So I handed in my notice and I thought it would be a fair and great idea to tell my story because I’d had such a great time.
‘They BBC decided that they didn’t like that and they put an injunction on me, which is quite full on.
‘I had to go to the High Courts and it was a pretty scary time but we managed to beat that off and get the book out there, which was a bestseller, which was amazing.’
