Ok, lately I have been watching alot of top gear. I have come accross really cool episodes, but I also noticed that each episode, of the first 8 episodes I ever watched always included a test driver named “The Stig”.
They basically give this guy a fast car each show to drive through a track and record the time. After that’s done, his time is then put down on a note and ranked on a metal board. The show simply rates the car speeds according to his lap times.
All of this seems interesting, but you know after the 8th and last episode I watched recently, I have had enough and had to find out who is The Stig?! He always wore white, the helmet and his overalls, that is. Mysterious as he was, I knew the internet would reveal his identity somehow, yet suprisingly, the internet failed. I have reached my last resort and headed to wikipedia for answers, and it came up with this.
(Note: this is a summarized version of the information laid out, the most important bits, of course.)
Black Stig
The first Stig wore black overalls and helmet. It was introduced in the first episode of the current format by Jeremy Clarkson as the resident test driver, as the presenters could not consistently post fast times themselves. Clarkson noted that “we don’t know its name, we really don’t know its name, nobody knows its name, and we don’t wanna know, cause it’s a racing driver.” Clarkson then described The Stig as having a very small brain, who had worthless opinions, and a disorder described by Clarkson as “Mansell Syndrome”. Its job description was to “just go out there and drive fast”.[4]
Black Stig posted a lap time of 1:46 for the Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car segment. This Stig was used for the first two series of the show. It was then “killed off” at the start of the third series when he was shown driving a modified Jaguar XJ-S off the flight deck of HMS Invincible during a stunt and landing in the sea.[5][6]
White Stig
After the Black Stig was “killed off”, a new “White Stig” was introduced, wearing white overalls and helmet.[7] White Stig has been featured in the show beyond just the Power Lap segment. His work has included driving cars in other segments of the show, for example finding a winner between the Aston Martin V8 Vantage, BMW M6 and Porsche 911 Carrera S on the Isle of Man,[8] and racing against the hosts in a bid to see who would cross the starting line at a race track; White Stig driving a Caterham Seven kit car from Caterham, Surrey to Knockhill racetrack in Scotland against the hosts in assembling an identical car from the ground up.[9] In Series 10 The Stig was recruited to take public transport in the Cross London Challenge and had to deal with such tasks as riding a bus, using an Oyster Card and having to answer a mobile phone (but instead just stared at the ringing device).[10]
White Stig has also appeared outside Top Gear in some of Clarkson’s motoring specials, such as The Good, The Bad, The Ugly where Clarkson reviewed and compared American and non-American cars, Heaven and Hell, where the Stig was used to compare the track times of the Chevrolet Corvette C6 and the TVR Sagaris, and raced Clarkson, in a BMW M5, with a Ferrari F430. In Clarkson’s recent DVD, Supercar Showdown, The Stig (in a Porsche 911) raced Sabine Schmitz (in an Audi R8) around the Ascari track in Spain to see which was the fastest, and in the latest Clarkson production, Thriller, the Stig can be seen chasing sheep[11] for recreation. The Stig also collected Top Gear’s third award for Best factual programme at the 2008 British National Television Awards. The Stig did not speak, but supplied an acceptance letter from the rest of the crew, read out by Griff Rhys Jones.[12]
White Stig posted the fastest lap time of 1:44.4 around the Top Gear test track for the Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car segment.
Listening habits
Another source of entertainment for the presenters is the music The Stig listens to whilst doing Power Laps around the Top Gear track. Often a specific genre will be chosen for one or more series. These have included power ballads, one-hit wonders, easy listening, country and western, prog rock, baroque, advertising jingles, foreign language tapes, romantic novels, salesman techniques, the hits of Elton John, the speeches of Margaret Thatcher, self-help tapes, and Morse Code.
I could have posted the speculations of people to whom The Stig is, but I rather not. I’d rather keep him as a secret identity to myself and just admire his driving skills and fast lap times.
And to close this off, I would like to post my favorite introduction of The Stig, which was presented at May 21st 2006.
Some say that his genitals are on upside down, and that if he could be bothered, he could crack the Da Vinci Code in 43 seconds… all we know is, he’s called the Stig.
Posted by fahad46 
Posted by fahad46 
Posted by fahad46 
