Ben Collins: The Ex Stig Reveals The TRUTH About Top Gear & Being The Stig Behind The Scenes!
Road To Success with Benedict Fowler
Ben Collins: The Ex Stig Reveals The TRUTH About Top Gear & Being The Stig Behind The Scenes!
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Concept
Formula 1
Formula 1, or F1, is a type of car racing that involves very fast cars racing on special tracks. It's one of the most popular and prestigious racing series in the world.
Car
Ford Focus
The Ford Focus is a small car that many people use for everyday driving. It's known for being easy to handle and not too expensive.
Concept
Le Mans
Le Mans is a famous car race that lasts for 24 hours. Teams race their cars to see who can go the farthest in that time, making it a test of speed and endurance.
Term
Formula One V10 engine
A Formula One V10 engine is a powerful engine used in F1 cars. It has ten cylinders and can spin very fast, making the car go really quickly.
Term
10,500 RPM
10,500 RPM means the engine can spin 10,500 times in one minute. The faster the engine spins, the more power it can produce, which helps the car go faster.
Term
carbon brakes
Carbon brakes are special brakes that work really well and can handle a lot of heat, which is important for fast cars on racetracks.
Term
downforce
Downforce helps cars stick to the ground better when they go fast. It makes them safer and allows them to turn corners more effectively.
Car
Honda Element
The Honda Element is a quirky-looking SUV that has a lot of space inside and can be used for many purposes. It's popular because it's practical and easy to clean, making it great for families or outdoor activities.
Concept
F1
F1 stands for Formula 1, which is a top-level car racing series where the fastest cars and best drivers compete against each other.
Concept
Formula Three
Formula Three is a type of car racing that uses smaller and less powerful cars than Formula One. Many drivers start here before they race in more advanced competitions.
Concept
push-to-pass
Push-to-pass is a system that gives drivers extra power for a short time to help them overtake other cars during a race. It's like a boost button for more speed.
Concept
Singapore Grand Prix
The Singapore Grand Prix is a Formula One race that takes place in Singapore, and it's special because it's held at night with bright lights. It's one of the exciting events in the racing calendar.
Term
performance edge
A performance edge means one car is a little better than another in terms of speed or how it handles on the road. It can be because of things like a stronger engine or a lighter body.
Term
hypercar
A hypercar is a very high-end sports car that is faster and more powerful than regular sports cars. They are often very expensive and have cutting-edge technology.
Car
Ferrari 458 Italia
The Ferrari 458 Italia is a high-performance sports car made by Ferrari, introduced in 2010. It's famous for its speed and beautiful design.
Car
Ferrari Enzo
The Ferrari Enzo is a very exclusive and fast sports car made by Ferrari, named after its founder. It's known for its powerful engine and sleek design.
Car
BMW F80
The BMW M3 is a fast and sporty car based on the regular BMW 3 Series. It's famous for being fun to drive and is often talked about because it's a favorite among car enthusiasts.
Concept
motoring films
Motoring films are movies or videos that feature cars and driving, often showing how cars perform on the road or track.
Concept
Dunsfold
Dunsfold is a famous racetrack in the UK where cars are tested and compared. It's known for its tricky turns and long straight sections, making it a popular spot for car enthusiasts.
Car
Porsche 911
The 2010 Porsche 911 Turbo is a high-performance sports car that has a turbocharged engine and is designed for speed and handling. It has a manual transmission, which means you can change gears yourself, making it more fun to drive.
Car
VW Transporter
The VW Transporter is a type of van made by Volkswagen. It's known for being very practical and can be used for transporting people or cargo. Some models have four-wheel drive, which helps with driving in snowy or slippery conditions.
Car
Mitsubishi Lancer
The Lancer Delta Evo 1 is a sporty car from Mitsubishi that was designed for racing. It's known for being fun to drive and has a powerful engine that makes it exciting.
Term
turbocharger
A turbocharger is a part that helps the engine get more air, which makes it more powerful. It helps the car go faster and perform better.
Car
Nissan Silvia
The Nissan Silvia is a sporty car that is great for driving fast and doing tricks like drifting. It's popular among car enthusiasts.
Car
Porsche Career Gt
The Porsche Carrera GT is a really fast and expensive sports car that was made in small numbers. It's known for its amazing speed and unique looks, making it a dream car for many people.
Car
Ferrari 296
The Ferrari 296 is a modern sports car that uses both a gasoline engine and electric power to deliver better performance and fuel efficiency. It's part of Ferrari's move to include hybrid technology in their cars.
Car
Aston Martin Valkyrie
The Aston Martin Valkyrie is a super-fast car that combines a traditional engine with an electric motor to make it very powerful. It's built for high performance on both roads and racetracks.
Car
Praga Bohema
The Praga Bohema is a very light and fast car made for racing. It has a strong engine and is designed to be aerodynamic, which helps it go really fast on tracks.
Concept
tarmac
Tarmac is a material used to make roads and tracks. It's made from stones and a sticky substance called tar, which helps create a smooth surface for driving. However, putting it down can be very expensive.
Brand
Hagerty
Hagerty is a company that focuses on insurance for classic cars and also creates videos and articles about cars. They are popular among car enthusiasts.
Car
Mclaren 600LT
The McLaren 600LT is a super-fast sports car that is designed for both the road and the racetrack. It's known for being lightweight and powerful, making it a favorite among car lovers who enjoy speed.
Term
racing seats
Racing seats are special seats in cars that help keep drivers safe and comfortable when driving fast. They are lighter than regular seats and help the driver stay in place.
Car
Suzuki Liana
The Suzuki Liana is a small car made by Suzuki. It's known for being budget-friendly and practical for everyday use.
LIVE
Why was it time to leave?
Why was it time to leave what you described as the dream job as the Stig?
I loved every day. It was amazing.
I learnt so much.
I could always be fundamentally so grateful for that time, but...
Some say he's wanted by the CIA and that he sleeps upside down like a bat.
All we know is he's called the Stig.
The Stig was arguably the best kept secret in motoring history.
Definitely when you've got the kit on, you do feel different.
When I put the outfit on, it was a reminder you're there to kick ass.
If you don't give it everything, you can look a room up it.
Now, this card here...
Do you want to explain why that says Richard Jameson?
I invented Richard Jameson,
which has an amalgam obviously of the three presenters' names,
which have an astro move, and Clarkson.
A sort of nail in the coffin was waking up to find my name outed in the radio tie.
Who is the Stig? The nation needs to know.
I was absolutely breaking it.
So this was the BBC versus Ben Collins, if they had won.
Having spent the rest of my life denying all knowledge of my role
as the Stig, I'm specifically told,
you do know you're not the Stig.
You're just worse. I knew it was time to leave.
Ben, for the second time in the back of my van, you are back.
And it's not a secret that the last episode that we did went to the absolute moon,
because so many people wanted to understand who the man in the white suit was,
the title of your book.
Well, this time I thought I'd try and prove it.
But then again, anyone can pick one of those up off the shelf, can't they?
But hopefully I can try and anchor the story a bit more.
But I loved catching up with you last time.
Just, yes, still a huge fan of Top Gear,
and it's great people still watching it these years later.
15 years ago I left. It's mad.
Well, the Stig was arguably the best kept secret in motor in history,
yet probably one of the most, or if not the most famous,
racing driver in the world.
Do you miss being the Stig?
Do you still wish that you were actively the Stig?
It was awesome.
And I suppose why was it cool?
Definitely, when you've got the kit on, you do feel different.
I think that's true, whether you wear a suit to work or whatever you're up to,
I think you put on a persona that you try to live up to.
The Stig definitely had that.
And when I put the outfit on, it was a reminder,
same though for any racing driver that goes to work.
You're there to kick ass.
You're there to get the peak performance out of yourself in that moment.
Well, the Stig wasn't really racing except the Brick car and the diesel
with the flippy-flop wing from Halfords.
But when I was on my own doing my laps and stuff like that,
I would always imagine the same pressure that's there in a qualifying session
that there's 25 other people.
If you don't deliver your personal absolute best,
you won't be at the top.
And there was always, in my mind, I would project that,
that if you don't live up to what the Stig stands for,
someone's going to come along and humiliate you and the character,
because at that point we were one.
So you can't be having that.
And actually, and it proved to be true with the whole,
the reason prize car stuff, when Mansel was the first to do his lap time,
and then they chucked me into it as I had to live up to it.
And you do that lap time, hoping that's it.
It's just the world champion.
You've got to beat the one guy one lap time.
And maybe the conditions are in your favor.
But I can't remember how many F1 drivers came afterwards.
If you don't give it everything, you can look a real muppet.
So that was the bit I loved about the Stig.
It stood for something that I believed in.
And it was the highest standard.
So I definitely aspired to it.
And plus all the crazy stuff we did, the monkeying around was just brilliant fun.
You answered a question there that was going through my head,
which was, how did the rest of the people around you at Dunsfold know that you were quick?
Because if you were the only racing driver on site at any given time,
you'd like to think that you'd be quick.
But what was the benchmark?
So I guess for you, it was the same as what it was for every guest
in every F1 driver that came, which was the lap board.
Yes, that's it.
Well, you can make up stories in your own mind,
but you can't deceive a stopwatch.
Well, although that is subject to the old human thumbs,
there's a few tenths of a second in that,
which is why now I'm using race logic, we're using proper timing systems.
No, you can't lie to the watch.
And you will always be compared to what's come before or after.
I've actually been spending more time with my old boss, Andy Willman.
So we've had our ups and downs together.
We ended up in the high court, but at least we had a coffee on the sort of day two
and the sort of joke, although it's black humor, gallows humor at that point.
But subsequently, we've become sort of mates.
It's slightly quirky.
I really like Andy.
He's a brilliant man, but he's also a tough cookie.
And we've been chatting about lots of different things.
And he's been sort of, I guess, coming sort of getting out what his management style was.
He compares himself to David Brent, which is fairly amusing and in some ways accurate.
He was pretty extraordinary in the office.
I was rarely in the office.
Occasionally, I would infiltrate to come and do, you know, pitch an idea or something silly,
like can we land a bloke from a parachute into the back of a car,
talk about car football, that sort of stuff.
But yeah, he famously would take piles of CVs.
I think I mentioned this to you before, take the top half, throw them in the bin,
and then say, I don't like the unlucky ones.
Not interested in them.
Let's look at these.
I'm sure there were other people that wanted to be the Stig.
I think, you know, the Stig in the black suit was there for about nine months.
I might have caught a few episodes and thought that looked quite cool.
And Star Wars like.
But, you know, they had a pool of interesting people who had either just come out of F1
or potentially had the time, as Andy said, to do a bit of TV work,
which Schumacher didn't have time to do.
So I got the interview and that basically was get in a car,
time it with a Ford Focus, thrash it around the lap.
And with the way he did it, they don't show you the times.
So it's the same with the guests.
So everyone's bricking themselves.
You know, how badly have I done?
Have I completely humiliated myself?
And he's got a great way of looking at you and just saying, is that it?
And I said, that's as fast as I can go.
That's all I've got.
Okay, thank you.
And then I didn't hear from him for a couple months.
So, and I found out subsequently that it was quick.
And I think it was two seconds or nearly two seconds quicker than Perry's time,
the previous Stig, and they were lining him up to shoot him off the aircraft carrier.
Are you competitive with those previous Stigs?
Any racing driver who's not competitive is not a racing driver,
you know, of course.
So, and it is a bit pathetic in some ways, but pedantic, you know,
you want to, I wanted to outpace and outlast my predecessor because you compare it.
I still thought nine months, keeping a secret when you're working on TV is quite a long time.
And you're on a one, you're a day-to-time contract,
what you want to call it, zero hour, you're only going to get hired for the days you do.
And there's two ways to look at that, you know, live every day as if it's the last
one you've got in that cool job, which is how I went about it.
Hopeful for more, but you never know.
And also, how long can I keep this going?
And then you, and we know when we were doing silly interviews in that first series,
it's all about survival.
I got asked to do an interview with a Dutch TV presenter because the boys didn't know what to
do with her. She was roaming around, she'd been given all access. She basically just turned up,
I think, with the camera team. This is before YouTube was invented.
So no one really thought then that this interview with me speaking would cause a problem.
Oh, they just said no one's going to watch this, just a few, just a few thousand people in Holland.
Then it got uploaded to YouTube and it was one of the big chinks in the armor.
Further down the line, still eight years. It was a good run.
I've obviously had the privilege of speaking with Andy in this van for an hour recently,
as you speak about him. I'm sure we're going to talk about him more,
but I've also had Richard Porter in the back of this van before, part of the original team.
And I've also had Izzy, obviously, Hammond's daughter in the back of this van.
So people that at the time probably all would have had an idea who you were.
I think Izzy actually said she had a paint memory of you maybe buying a
puppy or something off of them when she was younger.
Oh, yeah, the killer cats. I think Willman referenced this.
I watched your interview with him, which was really fun.
Maybe it's in his book. I can't remember if it was always chatting to you, but yeah.
Well, I met Hammond's family when they were tiny. We were doing the live tour.
We were away a lot. And I remember seeing him reunited with his kids.
And they were little tiny girls, and they were so pleased to see their dad.
He'd been away all that time. Then they got a bit older, and Hammond decided to have some cats.
And these were not your garden variety cat. They were totally cool.
What's the name of those big cats that are gentle and just sort of walk around?
Not Maine Coons.
Maine Coons. That is what he told me they were.
So they've got these lovely cats. They're Maine Coon cats.
And I was like, oh, and these are going to be a bit cheap because they're quite expensive.
I thought our family would enjoy having one of those.
And Willman thought the same. So we took these things back.
I took two, real sucker for punishment.
Then with Willman, I think his children were being stalked.
I went to his house. And on the staircase, there was one of these cats.
And whenever you walked past it, it would try and get you in the head.
With these really quite serious claws.
So they were a mix. It was like a sort of mountain lion crossed with a tabby.
So it looked almost domesticated, but they were all wrong.
And if you tried to touch them in any way, in any affectionate way,
they growl and seize on you both hands.
Jump on your head in the middle of the night.
So if it wasn't the killer cats, and it wasn't a kinesi or a Richard,
if you were to pick one of the team that accidentally could have leaked the stick at
any point that if you were to go back and say they were the most likely to accidentally do that,
who do you think it would have been?
Well, Jess has got, you know, the loudest voice.
To be fair, they were all really good.
I was surprised, actually, they didn't know for quite a long time.
It was at least a year before Jeremy knew.
Because I was, again, we're doing the live shows.
At that time, it was called something else. It was called MPH Live, I think.
So we're in London, and I had to do this thing against Tiff Nadel.
It was a kind of a competitive, again, two racing drivers,
racing around on a figure of eight and a thing.
But it was with the lights out, with the stick visor on.
It's quite dark, like wearing, you know, you don't wear your Ray-Bans indoors, do you?
So with the show lights down, I could barely see these platforms we were racing around.
But it was early days, so like, well, yeah, we're talking hyper competitive.
Down to the 10th of a second, I must beat Tiff.
And so I was taking that seriously.
And in between taking myself seriously, I got to go in and it's like go and hide in the motor home,
just chill out in there. So I went into the motor home.
So I was sitting in there in my civvies, and Clarkson walked in, and this was a big moment.
So this is the big man from TV, you know, kind of first time I've really met him,
having still not met him through all that time.
So just quickly, for context there, how long had you been this stick and not actually met Clarkson?
I think it was nearly a year. Yeah, definitely second season.
Yeah, that's how tight we kept it early on.
And I was very happy to keep it super tight.
I was thinking, don't tell the presenters.
Did you ever talk to him through the helmet?
Yes. But he didn't know who you are.
No, that's insane.
So he walked on huge, you know, he sort of had sort of touching the top of the Winnebago,
and looked at me with the sort of, who are you?
And I said, oh, hi, I'm Ben, and he told me to come in.
And he just gave me a knowing look and sort of did an about face.
So it seemed like, you know, this room has now been occupied by someone else.
I felt a bit shifty, but carry on reading my book.
And did he not know even then who you were?
When did Jeremy actually find out that you were the stick?
If he didn't know for a whole year?
I think he would have gone to Willman and said,
Willman, who the fuck's that guy in there reading a book?
And then he had his reveal.
And I think then they told the other two presenters.
But it wasn't long then before, you know, with crew and stuff,
you realize who was going to be there every week and that you could, you know,
so the earliest one was Jim Wiseman.
So he was Andy speaks for me.
He's a legend, lovely bloke and massive motorsport fan.
I probably have him on here.
You definitely should.
Wiseman's got great stories.
And he's very active in TV.
He's a very creative producer, great bloke.
So he knew Andy knew beyond that, no one I was aware of.
But the camera team, you recognize the same North Face jackets and what are in their faces.
And you'd start talking about the shot.
You'd start saying, oh, I wouldn't stand there, you know,
because my get whatever, you know,
bit of risk management, just common sense really stuff.
Then seeing what the process was was great.
So then I could start to sort of, and obviously I talked to people,
you couldn't just be an automaton, not talking.
So that gradually sort of gave way a bit.
You could trust the inner circle when you, you know,
let's just picture it because I've been lucky enough to go to Dunsfold before and with yourself
and with Leana's and all sorts and see the hello ground as me and Freddie referred to
as we actually took a little piece of tarmac from the track home with us,
which shows how much things from those days actually mean to people more than any kind of
monetary value.
But what I'm picturing is the team there to make top gear like an episode.
I'm picturing what 20 people you'd have safety,
people like Andy, you'd have people production, you'd have the boys occasionally.
Were you like walking around like, oh, can take my helmet off now?
Can not take my helmet off?
Can I take my helmet off now?
Take it off.
Why take any risk at all?
So take risk management for that stuff that you, you know, a tiny,
a tiny mistake, small risk, let's say,
would have a catastrophic as far as I was concerned outcome,
which would mean loss of job that you like.
So why take that risk?
So anytime I was at that track, the helmet was on.
And so I used to, we had a double duck at bus.
So we could go and take the food to it.
It was kind of like where the crew would eat.
So I would go to the top floor that removes you.
So you can actually actually say something without being recognized
and about still feed it through the helmet.
Unless I was in my little stig room, in which case, you know,
you could, you could just about relax, take the lid off for a bit and just like breathe
because it is hot after a few hours.
It's like this thing is itching.
Get it off.
Did you ever feel a bit excluded in them first couple of years?
Because you kind of had to be, because you couldn't be the guy
leaning over everybody with your helmet off,
getting involved with those ideas like car parachute
and car football and all the rest of it.
Because you were limited by this.
Did you ever feel like,
which it could be a bit more involved in that.
This looks fun.
Yeah, they used to have beers at the end of the studio days.
So you were asking about how many people,
so some shoots we do there with maybe five because we have a director and a crew of three,
me, and then you might get presenters on top.
But I'd say the smallest crew would be about four or five.
Studio day, that would go up to about 25.
You have the, you know, all singing and dancing.
You've got the live studio elements,
Brian Klein's team plus us doing our silly stuff on track,
you know, production crew, editorial stuff going on.
I forgot the question.
How many people were there?
How many beers at the end of the shift?
Oh, beers, yeah.
So on the studio days, yeah, people used to hang out.
And I just think, well, can't really do that.
There's always going to be two or three people I don't know
who might be too interested in who this person is.
Easy just to go home.
So it's a foxtrot.
Plus, I was usually quite busy.
So I was also around that time.
I was training to join the army.
So I was doing a lot of sort of evenings and weekends doing other stuff.
So actually on those days,
I often had to shoot off, go and do something different.
But really, yeah, you can't mix.
People are too curious.
How much racing, and I know we spoke about this in our first ones,
if you could summarize there,
how much racing had you done up to the point of being this dig?
I'd done, I'd reached what was then the peak of my career at Le Mans
in the top category, the L&P 900 and World Sports Car.
So that was the 850 horsepower beast, the Asgari.
The A410, which was an incredible thing.
So Formula One V10 engine, an absolute screen rank.
It was 10,500 RPM.
Wonderful, amazing thing to drive.
Like just surgically precise throttle, big carbon brakes.
I think we had more downforce than Formula One,
and it could do 220 miles an hour at Le Mans, like epic.
And with the sound of it was incredible.
So I've been doing that.
That was 2001 and 2002.
So I started racing in 94.
So I've been doing it a while, and I jumped about.
I've been doing single seats, try and get to Formula One,
just missed out there.
So that switch across to sports car racing was a real godsend.
It was amazing, and basically professional.
But it's tough, and the teams, they've got sponsorship one year,
then the next, it's rocky, and you never quite know.
Anyone that's kept a long career in racing has done incredibly well.
You've got to have a little bit of luck too,
but you've really got to navigate snakes and ladders to keep in it.
I had Karun Chanok in here for a conversation recently,
and I think he kind of explained the challenge of racing,
of raising funding as a racing driver,
better than anyone I've had explain that kind of process
for what it is on the whole.
Were you in those early years raising funding for yourself to go racing,
or were you managing to get one of these illustrious jobs
through the team that already had the funding and the sponsorship, etc?
So I remember it was one of the lowest parts of my life
was trying to find money to go racing, to try and get to where I was.
That's what everyone says.
I literally was going through the yellow pages at one point.
It was just awful.
And the stories you get told and the rejection letters
that's continuously being rejected,
I'd love to say that at the end of this story,
there's the world, that then there was this one miraculous thing.
Although there was actually.
So I ended up having materially failed to raise any money really myself.
I was fortunate in that we did get,
so Hayes PLC did pick me up when I was doing Formula 3.
They were amazing.
So I had a fantastic sponsor there,
but that wasn't from cold calling.
That was sort of networking through people I knew.
But the yellow pages strategy didn't work.
I had an agent helping me.
And then he managed to get Top Gear magazine
to put a small sticker on the side of the car
to get a bit of exposure.
And that was kind of my first route into thinking and working out
who was who through that magazine connection
to then get at least a sort of start the ball rolling
with you contacts to get an interview.
What I'm fascinated about with you from all your years of racing
is in all that racing and in all those different drives,
you're able to go out with your friends to the pub
or the boys that you're training the army with or whoever
and go, Jesus, that was such a tough race.
Like when I was driving this the other day,
it stepped out, it did this.
I was ended up in the gravel twice,
but then I locked in whatever it was.
You could talk about it.
What would happen or did you have those circumstances
where you'd leave Dunsfold per se?
And the beers wouldn't be with the team,
but you might be invited with beers for your friends
and there might be some family.
And you just couldn't talk about what it is that you'd been doing.
Like, do you remember navigating that?
That's a great point.
I never really thought about that.
I just...
Or you're just a crab.
I just went full hermit.
Yeah. I suppose I'm lucky that I was...
I was also...
Despite thinking that my career was over,
that was so done that Le Mans stuff,
the team shut their doors,
literally called every single team in the road of decks.
There was nothing going on.
But shortly after getting the top gear job
and starting properly in 2003,
so I've done a few bits in 02,
I also got back into racing.
So I was doing that.
So there was a large part of my career
that I could at least talk about
and be with the team more closely.
I don't know.
I just thought that the top gear thing
was such an amazing gift.
Just don't spoil it.
And for the sake of keeping a trap shut,
it's not a big price to pay.
Did you feel that at the time?
Was it...
Was top gear when you joined as big a thing
as we all talk about it being now in the moment?
Because Willman often spoke about the fact that
they never really realized in those early days
what they had outside of messing around with your mates,
trying to create the show and being as good as it can be.
It was only over a period of time
they actually realized what they had.
Like, did you know that from the outset?
I think it did start to dawn on me.
I mean, Clarkson's a big deal and was from the beginning.
So, you know, very charismatic, very intelligent.
People underestimate how hard he works and this stuff.
The prep, the writing, the scripts.
He's a real ideas factory.
And, you know, he's bombastic and ridiculous
and fun to watch.
Got to know the other lads over time
and see where their skill sets were.
I think probably it was when Christian Slater came on the show
and I got quite starstruck because he's Hollywood A-list.
True romance, great movie.
And amongst others on IMDb,
I thought, wow, they've got Hollywood A-list actor
to come in here.
And Lionel Richie as well, obviously.
His will fell off.
Embarrassing.
So, that was...
I think that was a good forecast of where it was going.
And it got there quite quickly.
I think I was always aware they were watching the viewing numbers.
There was a pressure on them to succeed,
which I didn't realise what that pressure was actually
until you chat to Andy and you know, with TV though,
it gets cancelled really quickly.
If the thing it doesn't take off in the way that they want,
that's it, game over.
And I think there were quite a few.
You know, I'm sure they had a lot of sleepless nights.
But the format looked strong.
And those early days where the creativity was off the scale,
people from the floor could throw ideas in and get them to happen.
That was quite exciting.
And then as the numbers grew, you could see it was changing.
Do you think that was kind of what made the magic of Top Gear
in those early days?
Definitely.
You could argue that the big success is what kind of killed it.
And that those ratings go through the roof.
BBC, worldwide, the commercial team start to take more interest in it.
And it starts to, you know, the corporate hand,
the dead hand starts to get involved.
You just mentioned Lionel Richie for reference.
And obviously we saw the amount of people that you would train
in the cars, the amount of people you do laps with.
You mentioned that Simon Cowell's lap time show was always quite handy.
Have you bumped into any of the people that they didn't know who you were at the time,
but after being the stick?
Yes. I can't remember who it was.
I did say, I was standing next to someone who was looking at me.
And I was like, oh, and I caught my name.
No, I said, oh, hi, Rob.
How's it going?
And he's looked at me and you can see there was something going on.
So I recognized that voice.
I haven't got a clue who you are.
And I was like, ah, and I realized I wasn't wearing the helmet.
And that that's when he'd last seen me.
And I was like, and I tried to sort of backtrack.
It's like, sorry, wrong guy.
Oh, you didn't tell him.
I didn't.
I scuttled back whilst he was still thinking about it.
I've also seen is a few.
When I was on set with Tom Cruise, that was quite cool.
Got to say hello to him subsequent to doing our Bugatti runs
and him terrifying everybody on two wheels.
Who else?
There's a few.
There's a few of high five subsequently.
Before we get off the kind of secrecy element of the stick,
what I love is that this time you've brought a couple of things with you in the van.
Now this card here, I hold it up to the camera.
Says Richard Jason.
Jameson.
Richard Jameson.
Sorry, do you want to explain why that says Richard Jameson
if you haven't all worked it out yet?
So as time went on, we started to travel more hotels being booked,
more people being employed at Top Gear.
It seemed to me prudent not to be booked into hotels as Ben Collins,
because people did know I was racing.
Then they would spot the crew.
They'd see the presenters and they'd be like,
what's this racing driver that goes with you and is always on the bookings?
I invented Richard Jameson,
which is an amalgam obviously of the three presenters' names,
which Hammond, Richard Jameson and Clarkson.
And it's a genuine BBC pass.
So I sort of said, can I get this?
I explained the reasoning.
I said, can I have my own BBC credential?
And they said, yes.
I'm sure I'm in breach of various BBC guidelines,
but it worked and I could zap myself in
and it wouldn't scam me as Ben Collins.
So I guess it's like a teddy tub coming to work with his own outfit on.
But it was effective.
Well, the other thing that you've got that I don't think you realise
quite what I think that would go for at auction,
but it's your helmet.
I never thought I would be touching your actual helmet, but it's here.
You need to stop that.
But yeah, that's one of the two I've got.
This one has had less action than the number one.
But yeah, one of the ones from back in the day.
Yeah, a good bit of kit.
I actually am a bit gutted.
I didn't get to keep the sort of the first stage one,
which I think was the Super Bandit.
This is the diamond bag because the Super Bandit was a more flat nose job.
This one's got a bit more room.
If you've got a big conch, that's the one for you.
But yeah, cool thing to keep.
Do you think this company here, Simpson,
I don't know them pre-top gear.
I don't know them after top gear.
But do you think these two helmets had quite a big effect on this company?
I think it did help sales.
This one, the funny thing with this,
it's not the most aerodynamic if you're in an open top car.
So if you're in a catering or something,
you do feel quite a bit of wind.
Super Bandit was built for drag racing, really.
This one just looks great.
It's just cool.
So I think I was probably three or four years in.
I wrote to Willman and just said,
please could we do an upgrade.
So I think the first thing I'd upgraded was the suit,
partly because the initial suit I had to wear wasn't fitted for me.
I don't know who it was fitted for, but someone very small.
And it fitted very tightly in all the wrong places.
It was pretty embarrassing.
So we got rid of that early on and got to Alpine Stars,
which was great fit.
But I saw this come up and I said, Willman, come on, what about this?
He said, yeah, you can make it get a change.
So I wrote to these guys and they very kindly provided the lids.
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The other people that you coached other than Hollywood A-list celebrities
were Formula One drivers.
It was the time that they all got to compete against each other in the same car.
Although I've got a theory that it was slightly quicker, that particular car.
Oh, you want to bring that beef up?
No, we're not going there quite yet.
But out of all the F1 drivers that you coached and got to see drive,
do you think if the staffing came to that studio now, got in that car,
he'd go miles quicker?
Yes.
I think, I wouldn't say miles quicker.
I think the limit is finite.
We're all pretty close to the limit of what that little car will do before it dies.
But I think if the conditions are equal, I think Max has just got something.
He's able to unlock grip in places that he's just very imaginative.
He'll find it either by hunting down a slightly tweaked line,
something quirky with the steering.
He'll sense drag on a tire that he's just got it all around.
I think I was already a believer with watching him in Formula One,
how he invented a new overtaking move this whole, he's extended the track.
We've all been racing the same rules.
I've watched so many of the races from Formula Three, Formula One, the 90s era,
Senna, Schumacher, Prost.
Nobody ever thought, well, figure out a break later.
I'm going to break all the way to the gravel.
I'm going to use that.
I'm going to extend my braking by four car lengths,
which means you can then overtake in cars where it's impossible to overtake,
which Formula One of this era is practically impossible.
They've absolutely got these push-to-pass things.
If you watch him somewhere like, I think it was the Singapore Grand Prix,
like the last year or the year before at night, nobody could overtake.
The ones that tried when Max started coming through the field,
crashed almost all of them.
They locked up.
You could see the cars were impossible to drive.
You could say there was no progression in the braking.
They either stopped or they locked the tyres and skidded straight off.
So I think he was cutting through the pack.
That's what happened to Lewis.
He then just overtook him.
I mean, he's got a gift for sensing grip and maximising it.
It's whether it's the grip, the overtaking rules.
They're trying to change the rules to sort of hold him back,
but he's smart enough to keep adapting.
Speaking of adapting, there's obviously a couple of drivers in F1
that have stayed on.
They're a little bit older than the others when you look at Alonzo and you look at Hamilton.
Do you think if you got to that position of F1,
it's hard to say that you'd maybe step away when you feel like you'd come off peak
and as a racing driver, as the Stig, have you ever felt like you've got to peak
and then known that you can't quite achieve what you did at peak?
I think that's a tough thing to concede because with racing and any sport,
you're always pursuing excellence and you're always believing you can improve.
Every day's a school day, you're always going to find something else that's
where you can improve.
With motorsport, because it's so cerebral, if you've got enough, a level of fitness
that enables you to access that sport, let's say it's extremely high, which it is.
It's outrageously high, but as long as you can feed your brain with enough oxygen,
if you fit enough to do it, then the rest of it is in your head.
It's not limited by physicality necessarily.
What's going on there, then it's down to processing power, which is again what we're
saying with Max. This processor is fast, is CPU, terminator style.
When does that start to wane? Really hard to know. I would not want to admit that it ever
does, but obviously it does. Not that they needed to be the sharpest
tools in the box when it comes to driving, but they still needed to be pretty handy.
The big three that are on our screens every Sunday night, if you were to put them in order on your
own leaderboard and you were to do a bet on them, you were to do one, two, three,
what would you be putting on that board? Well, I would like to put them actually on the leaderboard.
So I'm working on Willman because I'd like to see his sweet cheeks squeezed into that
open-faced helmet and look at him squirrel away on a lap time. So I have pitched this.
I've also indirectly thrown the gauntlet to James May and I think his response was no
fucking chance, which he's saying there's a chance. Maybe he's saying, no, specifically he
said there's no chance, but the fact that he responded suggests there is a chance that he
might have a go. I fancy I could get Hammond behind the wheel. I don't know about Jeremy because
he's busy driving tractors. Where would they finish? It's a really interesting one because
that little Suzuki, it does not like being bullied or overdriven. So that could go against Jeremy
because I think he'd want to bring his neck because he likes big, powerful cars. James,
very good at responding to tuition as we saw with Jackie Stewart when he took him around Alton Park.
And if you can listen and learn, then you can make huge progress and you really lay waste to
people who if you try and come in with some swagger, the car will just deny you access.
So, and then Hammond, he's committed, he's brave. And he's been doing some racing,
so he understands that there is a process here. So I don't know. I think it's too close to call
if I'm being really honest. In the B&W, I think that Jeremy had a slight performance edge,
but Jeremy was also the only one that got to do any testing before the race. Hammond literally
turned up. He'd been back from his jet car crash not very long. And he rocked up and his first lap
was in qualifying. You know, no pressure. This book, which you speak about the guys a lot in,
but you also speak about yourself in. And after talking about the secrecy of being the stick,
the one thing that you're not supposed to do, you're not allowed to do is take the helmet off.
Yeah, don't tell anyone. Yet this entire book is about taking the helmet off. Now,
after that and everything that followed, the then thing that you're definitely not allowed to do
is go and emulate things that were done on Top Gear, like go back as Ben Collins drives,
to Dunn's fault, smashing cars around the original X Top Gear, X Textract, because the X stick.
How, as much as this is just paper and words, how hard was it to get to this moment of releasing
a book for you? So to go from being fully secret and taking it so seriously to standing in front
of a camera with the helmet off and posing and stuff, I mean, I found it excruciatingly painful
to that side. At the same time, I was also, I knew it was time to leave. So it went really
against the grain, but I was keen to go to something new, do something different.
Why was it time to leave? Why was it time to leave what you described as the dream job as the stick?
I loved every day. It was amazing. I learned so much. I would always be fundamentally so grateful
for that time. And but towards the end, I think I mentioned, you know, part of it that kept it
fresh was you never knew if there'd be another day, but that pressure started to flip the other way,
which was, well, we can get anyone to come in and do this this role. That didn't come so much from
my boss, but it was coming from people at Bebe. And I remember going in to have a conversation
about that, because I felt we created the sticks credibility was was high. I was able to stand
up with the Formula One boys in the Suzuki to do what we'd done. You know, we were doing some legit
stuff on track, high speed runs, things like that. And on one occasion, they chuck someone in
the white suit for a magazine thing. And I believe a very expensive hypercar was thrown through some
woods very narrowly, missing them missing the trees. And I got wind of it. I said, look, I don't
think this is going to do us any good. If you carry on throwing other people in and you know,
I'd rather do I'd love to do the work. Can I be that guy for the for whatever it is that we're
doing? You know, so this is the non TV stuff is where it began. And I was firmly shut in my box,
and was specifically told, you do know you're not the stick. You just wear a suit.
And I just thought, wow, okay. So because it's not Batman, it's not like you dress up as Batman.
If you dress up as Batman for the Batman movie, that doesn't mean that you are Batman. You can
that you can fly off of buildings and you've got the really cool gadgets that will work in real
life. And you can talk in a growly voice and be believable. But the stick job, it was in reality
grounded in reality. You know, the as I never forget when we're in Zolder, last minutes of the day,
you know, and I had to go and race against Tim Shrik and Aston, you know, it's online.
You can't go out and ask him to act or do you mind acting for this one and finish second because
it would look really good if I won this one because I'm the stick. You can't choreograph that stuff.
You have to go and walk, you know, walk the walk.
That business of being slowly closed out of that role of the role spread. And overnight,
I then got replaced on the live shows, basically by someone who was happy to do it for free.
And within a few months of that, I remember one of my mates called me and said,
bro, have you seen the newspapers? I said, no, there's a kiss and tell.
Someone says, I shag the stick. And I was, you know, sure enough, whoever that was that
did that job within months within and I've been there years developing this, you know,
credibility and protecting the sticks character, I suppose. So I felt it was going to be thrown
under the bus. Did that cause you any problems at home? Like with that coming out like it wasn't me
is another there's other stigs. No, because there was no, you know, it was named and all
that sort of stuff. But I just thought this is such so crap because, you know, we've worked
so hard to protect this character. And I could see it was going to die a death by a thousand cuts.
And it was very uncertain whether, you know, how my role would be diminished over time. I just thought,
you know, it was, you know, better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
Let's go. I think it made it was a calculated decision. I could see that the direction of travel
show was a huge success. And I think that, you know, it was out it was outgrowing what I could
bring. So and it would also, there was another fundamental sort of nail in the coffin was waking
up to find my name outed in the radio times. There's a front page splash in the radio times,
who is the stick? The nation needs to know. And you turned it over and there was my bio.
That obviously fueled speculation. And it was uncontainable. So we stayed on for a bit.
Schumacher did a great smoke screen job. But I was again, I was having these conversations
slightly threatening and tones of, you know, well, identity and anonymity has been waning and stuff.
And you piece it together, you like, look, this is going to end. So it's better to leave on your
own terms. So you left on your own terms. What year was that for context? So that was 2010.
And cheekily, in Willman's book, he has mistimed my departure. But, but I remember it very clearly,
because I gave my notice in the start. I was trying to do it in the first episode of my last series.
I had to wait a couple of episodes, but it was before the end of the show anyway.
This is a personal note. So I want to know if it was you that drove it. Did you get to drive the 458
Italia? Because I know one of your dream cars is the 458 Speciale. So on the 458 Italia shoot,
because I know that car came out in 2010. Actually, I prefer the Italia. Was that you?
Yes. Doing that lap. Do you know, my mum, like many people, hasn't updated her skybox. This is
God's honest truth in so long that if you go on to the recordings, the recording at the bottom
is the Top Gear Ferrari 458 episode. Because I was so captivated by that car and that piece of film,
a Clarkson calling it a burning bear, and it going just underneath or just pit the Ferrari Enzo
on the fastest time's boards. It was one of the two. It was right next to the Enzo. So I've got
to have me one of those in the future. And lucky enough, I did. But that's the impact
that those films could have on all the people around the country. So it does show just how
important it was right to take pride in doing the role and getting it right. So it begs the question
that if you left on your own terms, why were you then in high court?
Oh, well, yeah. So when I announced to my boss, Andy, that I was leaving,
you know, I said, I told him, I've written a book and I'd like to read it. And he asked,
you know, is it positive? I said, it's 100% positive, like you to have a look at it.
And he said, well, the BBC won't like it. I said, well, it's freedom of speech.
I'm leaving at the end of the series. And it's been great. Thank you.
Let's keep talking. Well, that then went very quickly to receiving a legal letter
and an immediate injunction, which I had to Google that. I did a law degree but didn't cover this.
So that meant basically that until it's been decided in a law of court, if you open your mouth,
so you'll be liable for contempt of court, which is jail time in a six figure,
potentially six figure fine. So we were going to court, which is one way to deal with it.
And there was minimal talking and it was very heavy handed stuff. So they had a QC on the case
and it got very ugly very quickly. So this was the BBC versus Ben Collins?
Yes. And Harper Collins, who are the publishers who are bravely standing behind it and saying,
we're going to back you up. So you've got BBC versus the Rupert Murdoch team.
And was Willman on the benches in the court?
We were all there. Now, you know, it's unbelievably stressful. And also, because I wasn't allowed
to say anything before the case been decided, whether I would be allowed to say anything and
whether the book would be allowed to come out because they wanted to ban the book.
Until that had been decided, I had to get my trap shut, but they could say what they liked.
So I was reading all this stuff. You know, I remember reading one bit,
laughing at, I was living in a semi dashed, was it pebble dashed semi, sorry.
And I'm like, laugh it up, guys. Yeah, that's that's where I live with my kids. And this is serious
for me. And they were, you know, one of the guys saying, you know, you could lose your house over
this on the other side of it. And I was like, yeah, I know that, you know, but the more that
became this ruthless sort of intent, the more I dug in. So I'm not not putting up with that.
Then the case was booked for a date that was the same date. My wife was due to have a C-section
for our son to be born. And so we asked for the date to be moved. And they wouldn't move it,
which I thought was was quite spiteful. So so I didn't attend the case. But it went over running
to day two. Other or no, is that good news, bad news? What is that? So if it was okay for me to
go to day two, so I traveled up to go and have a look. And it was funny because there's a coffee
shop opposite that court. So we all filed in there. I was absolutely bricking it. And
and then the BBC lot filed in. So I sat and was on the other side of the coffee counter,
we were drinking our espressos. And he just goes, I think you're going to win this, you know.
And I said, well, what are we doing this for? And he said, I can't what his response was. But
we had a friendly chat. And I actually had to leave in the middle of the afternoon,
not knowing if I was free or not free from having spent the rest of my life denying all
knowledge of my role as the Stig, which is what I'd have had to have done if they had won.
And a mate of mine, Femi, on the train is one of those classic broken like, what happened? You
won. The relief was almost honestly unbelievable. The pressure was so huge. From from being revealed
in radio times. That was strange because I felt small relief, because I, you know, you kind of
covet something maybe too much. So I love the job and when I leave, it felt slightly relieved
almost that there was like that moment where you can go to your mate at the pub. I'm going to be
on the Stig. After that amount of time, the threat of being outed as the Stig is going to
get going to dissipate. And it was a strange relief. And then but that was was much bigger
because everything I owned was hanging on that. But it's not just that when you think about it
from getting to know you and seeing how passionate you are about driving and cars and how they
perform and film and video and all of these things and English like the film of you thrashing the
F80 around Maranella. Look, I know we take the piss every now and then, but that is one of the
greatest motoring films I've ever watched. Just such an amazing piece of footage, such an amazing
language used when driving that car. And that is the real skill when someone can put both those
things together. But I can't even imagine being inside your head if that decision had gone the
other way back then. Like if I knew Ben Collins for Ben Collins drives and there was none of the
white helmet and everything. And you had to sit in conversations like this then for the rest of
your life, not being able to tell me that you were the Stig and you were that close to that.
Yeah, it would have been farcical. It would have been completely farcical.
Do you think it had broke you mentally because you're a tough cookie?
Well, firstly, thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed the videos. And so YouTube has been a massive release.
I love it. And so having thought TV was where it's at, the whole audience has gone on online.
So I'm getting to do all my Stig life stuff I wanted to do, get to do that now,
not just go around Dunsfold. I love taking cars to Dunsfold. I love because I love the track.
I love being able to compare the times to what I did 15 years ago.
Can I beat my old times in this car? And it's been fantastic.
But being able to go to Fiorano and drive an F80 and do all this other crazy stuff.
That's like the Stig being released. It's the bit you wanted.
It is. It's a lot of the stuff I wanted to do. Still some stuff I've yet to get stuck into.
I think if I had lost that case, well, firstly, I would have been bankrupt.
That would have been sad because of legal fees and everything else would have
and also unemployed. So I don't need to start from scratch. But I don't know how well they would
have managed to keep the secret themselves. They had leaked it in the radio times. Basically,
I'll give them credit where it's due. All the press that camped outside my house,
they were camped there for a couple of weeks. One chap followed me when I was actually racing
in the European Le Mans series. He flew to Portugal whilst this was before it went to court
trying to get an interview. They were really determined to get to the truth. I know that
there's sometimes there's overreach, but they were there. They were very polite.
And I think they would have kept on until they got through to it. So it would have come out
one way or the other. But it would have been a much harder way to go. Yeah, like you say,
by building blocks would have been much smaller. I'd like to think I'd have found something useful
to do and found a way through. So everyone that says, oh, that assumes the stick would have been
being paid as much as a Clarkson mail, Hammond or the rest of it. That wasn't true. That wasn't the
case. No, I was very happy with what I was. You know what I mean? Take it or leave it. Do you
want to do this job? Yeah. This is what you get paid. Take it or shut up. And I was over the
moon. It was great. And whilst I was racing, it was bloody fantastic because it absolutely
paid the bills and got me through. Was this more successful than you imagined it to be?
Yeah, I guess. You know, going from your day by day, it was good to have a job that paid
pretty well for what it was. And it helped segue me into movies, going to work in stunt
departments. Yeah, you've done stuff with the DBS Aston Martin, Casino Royale,
breaking six cars. It was the best film school I could have gone to. I learned about
watching, observing how they put their scripts together, how they dissected the machine,
how they extracted the films, how they shot them, framed them, the vignettes they put on,
the music choices. All that was fantastic. So it opened many, many doors. But the book,
I was quite surprised. I think because there was so much heat in the newspapers and there was a
sure-all around the departure. And they went to town with this sort of, you know, the whole
shooting range, the Stig Farm. The Stig Farm, I found historically funny.
How was that? I think this is when they were looking for a new Stig. And they went to a
farm where they grew, where they were growing them. And there's a scene where they pop up the book
and they've got one of the guys is using a Tip X on the computer screen because obviously they
think I'm thick. But yeah, so as angry as they got, it sort of in a way actually, it created
more publicity. Which in hindsight, you can say, oh yeah, that was a good thing at the time. It was
actually fairly mortifying to be under fire. So these days, obviously know you as Ben Collins
Drives. That is the name of your YouTube channel. And that is what you do. What does Ben Collins
actually drive? On the road? Well, yeah, at the moment, I was dailying a 911 Turbo from 2010,
which for me was a Peak 911 manual gearbox and proper handbrake and lovely, lovely kit.
But I felt I was racking up too many miles. So I've currently downgraded myself. If you can
say that, that's not fair. But I've got my VW Transporter. It's not a downgrade. It's four-wheel
drive. I've got my wind tires on. I'm laughing. It's minus two out there. I can stop, turn.
I've got traction. So it's abused. It's about to click 180,000 miles. I do a lot of miles.
So it chugs me around. Yes, I'd like Bluetooth that works, sat-nav, a decent sound system.
But at the end of the day, it gets the job done. And I got here.
What about in the barns back on the farm? Go. Well, yeah.
Come on, Ben. So I have, unfortunately, I have sort of, you know, what do you call it,
cracked that bubble of restraint and fully unrestrained. Now I've got a Lancer Delta Evo1,
which is fully restored. It's flipping amazing. I love it to bits. I just love looking at it.
And I love driving it. I love the sound it makes. It's slightly temperamental and it's cold.
But I love it. Even those turbocharges, it's like super linear. But it just gives you that
really good buzz, like sort of 80s, 90s buzz you get from a turbo.
Old Land Rover, 98 Land Rover. The Wolf is an ex-army thing. So it's complete
brute. But you can have it parked in a field, which is where it's parked
for six months. And it will still, it just turns over on the first go. Love that.
What else you're going on? I bought the Nissan Sylvia that I drove in the film My Fault.
So that was, I'd never driven one before, because it's a Japanese import. And they look good.
I've seen one of them. I think it's in one of the Fast and Furious films,
but until I dropped the clutch in that movie, I didn't know how good they were.
And the balance is off the scale. Just love it. It's one of the best drift cars ever.
So I had to have that. That's in there. It's in the collection.
There's something coming up. It hasn't been revealed yet.
That's coming up. You'll know all about it in January, but I have taken the plunge on something
quite exciting. Was that a big moment buying a crazy car?
It was, because it's very self-indulgent. But at the same time, I love these machines.
I love what they can do. And those years on top gear, seeing these things go through and
just remembering at the time, this car is amazing. This would be the ultimate car to have,
but it's too expensive in career GT, stuff like that.
Would you buy a 458?
Yeah, I think they're great. I prefer the standard car to the Speciale.
That one upset Andy Harris. His is very cool, though.
Yeah, I love them. They're so balanced. And before the turbo came in and ever so slightly
overpowered, in my view, the rear axle, the 458's kind of got it all. It's so user-friendly.
You look back now, and if you've driven some of the new stuff like 296,
they've got all the extra power, and they can deal with it. They can process that power,
makes the 458 feel... You might go, oh, it's a bit underpowered. It's not.
It's just kind of just right, but we've been spoiled.
And can you really say you're driving those cars, you can feel them squirming in the court?
You can't. They're going around like scale-extric cars on a track with twice the magnetic.
It's just they're so glued. By the time you're braking traction, you're probably flying off a cliff.
To all my loyal listeners listening on Spotify, Apple, and other streaming platforms,
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Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the podcast.
And I really hope to bring you some more inspirational guests soon.
The last book I had in this van, talking about motoring and all the crazy adventures and 458s
and fun and things, was Mr. Willman's book. Now, I know this, we're hoping, is going out
on Monday, coming up. And the day before, on your channel, you have your own chat with Mr. Willman
coming out. Do you want to explain a little bit about that? And have you had a chance to read
Andy's book? Yes, it's great. I really enjoyed it. And we've poked fun at each other about
book writing and crossing various lines. And I did point out to him, you know,
Sandy, you've outed the Stig in this book, the new one. So I left in 2010. Another chat took over.
Obviously, the show's stopped now. But occasionally, the Stig is wheeling out to do some stuff.
And we've been having some fun. I mean, we're trading blows down at Dunsfold.
So I think so. Currently, New Stig has the record time at Top Gear Track,
which is in the Valkyrie. I nearly beat it in the Praga Bohema,
nearly. But nearly it's not quite, is it? So one tenth slower. But with the launch,
that hybrid gets, anyway, I'm not going to make excuses. He did it a faster time.
We might go back with some fancier tires and try and reclaim the record. But it's fun.
Anyway, he's still in play. So I was quite surprised. Like, Willman, you've referenced
his name a few times here. He said, well, you're fine once talk. I said, well,
but I was writing about myself and you've done this to another person who was gainfully employed
or was. Do you hope that one day, there'll be like a Top Gear team reunion for drinks at the
farmer's dog or something along those lines? Because when I hear the way that Porter speaks,
when I hear the way Willman speaks, Willman, when I actually asked him the question about
when Top Gear came to an end, I was expecting him to be a kind of thing about it. And it was the
moment that he actually, he was like, I wasn't angry at all. I was just unbelievably sad,
like, because of the good times and the people. Would you, would you be attending that?
100%. So I think it was Andy's 60th, 60th went, which was great to go to be invited and go along
and see everybody was there. Really, really, it's just really fun. You've got so many shared
memories, all the funny times, particularly like with the crew, when we go to Germany,
be looking for your hotel, you've been faxed directions and the directions consist of
on one piece of A4, a map of Germany, the whole country, and a dot that would be the size of a
county that your hotel is somewhere in here, but could be anywhere. I mean, it's not like it is now
with the pinpoints, you know, you send, share it on the, on the WhatsApp, all that crazy stuff,
the Brit car races. It's funny you say that actually just for talking about Andy. If I go
onto my phone here, when you just mentioned the WhatsApp, I just want to bring this up for people.
When Mr. Willman was trying to track me down in London, he said, cool, I'll see you at 5.45,
where are you? So I just sent him a pin, little dot, little pin map. So you can put,
what's the reg of the van and what street are you on? Bloody millennials.
What's the response? I don't know that he's even got one of those types of phones.
I remember going to, we were going to look at a track because they were thinking of moving
to different, different track in the Cotswolds, somewhere near Jeremy.
Went again, look, and it was the surface was terrible. It was really rough. And I was like,
this costs a lot to fix this. But could you make a track from it? Yes. So he looked at
the one they used in the Grand Tour. No, it wasn't the Evola Drone. I've forgotten its name,
Endstone. Endstone. Yeah, we could make a shape, but it's, roughly speaking,
tarmac is a million pounds a mile. Probably it's more now. Sorry, but the journey up,
I was in the car with Willman. I mean, his notepad was his arm. So it's just his hands
covered in biroscrawl. And he's left, sorry, he's a left hand, which hand it's probably written on
there. Just covered in notes. There was this, that, the other, his mobile phone was popping off
left, right and center. And he's just his head just exploding with information and things he had to do.
And you could tell that the three hours required to go up and back were major pain in the ass for him.
Because running that show, he was right at the epicenter, everything was happening.
So yeah, but he was funny. He somehow managed to get it done with his lucky underpants.
It's funny how things come round because you spent a lot of time on tarmac in the middle of fields
during your days at Duns, Fog and Cars around. And now you've got your own because you bought a farm.
Yes. Right. Similar to somebody else that you were with. Yeah. Even team. How did you come to have a farm?
You put on a hook and you hold it up to the camera like that. And then you put it back in the water
and then you drop the break. Well, I've got a small holding field and a little pond with an air
B and B on it. That's my view. You have a farm. Yes. Small farm for growing apples.
So I'm sidering, which is exciting. So Ben, we launched Ben Sider. So I'm doing in partnership
with Samford Press, Samford Orchard even, who they're fantastic. So Barney Butterfield down there
is just inspiration with his knowledge of everything to do with making cider. So we've done a straw
press special to launch with, which is something you hand press through. You know, it's a 400 year
old press down in the mid-Devon. And we produce this stuff, which we've bottled. And it's really
good. So it's like a fine cider. It's great with food. Love it. I love a good sider. I think we've
all become very accustomed either to the scrumpy, which I just can't process that. I don't know
what that feels. There's old school who like their scrumpy respect. I can't process it. And
you've got the commercial stuff that's sort of sugary and doesn't really have a lot of flavour.
This stuff is full of flavour. And yeah, so I'm off doing that. And then planting lots of trees,
which is exciting, full-sized orchards, like full-sized trees. And they're all heritage
Devon varieties, which have completely been cultivated for centuries by farmers to thrive
and make great fruit in that region. And the orchard has been decimated over the years. So
it's great to be putting some back in the ground. And I think that Sider is about to have his day.
We've done craft beer and cider. You don't get the gluten issues.
There's a lot of benefits to drinking cider apart from it just tastes great.
Was that always a dream of yours to have that? Or was that an idea that's blossomed in the last
few years? I don't know why I love trees, but I just do. I find them peaceful. Apple trees are
particularly beautiful. They go mad in the spring. The blossoming stuff coming off them and all the
bees go wild for it. So when I was living in town, I was still planting these little trees.
Any spare space I could see. And the kids were all their eyes. Oh, no, he's found another bit
of dirt, stick another tree in. In it goes. Another tree goes in. So I actually took a few
of these little friends with me when I moved to Devon. But now I've got more space. So let's
fill it up with trees. What's next for you? Because you're doing Ben Collins drive. You get
into drive pretty much anything you can get your hands on, whether it's million pound
primer, Prague Behemence or whatever it is. So what's like the next goal? How are you keeping
yourself motivated to enjoy your racing and your timing cars? Well, it's interesting. I've just turned
50. So the clock is ticking if I want to go and win Le Mans. And I would still love to do that.
I'm still, I had to categorize myself recently if I was writing some sort of form.
And I was like, what am I? I still put racing driver because at the end of the day,
that's what I've done my 10,000 hours in. That's what has made me the mindset that I have. I think
it's predominantly formed from motorsport. So that's kind of where it's at. But I'm not really,
I'm not even racing this year. So it's, that's definitely an aspiration. YouTube, I think,
is great. And I just want to keep working on that. And I want to keep growing that channel
so I can make more interesting films, more exotic cars and be able to go and do more
outlandish adventures. I look at some of the other channels that I enjoy watching.
Big fan of Jason Camisa on Hagerty. They do great stuff. I can't do even get my head around
what my Armstrong does. But I love driving his mad creations, even if they want to kill me sometimes.
So I'm just loving it. There's so many things I want to do. I want to go do NASCAR racing in
America. But yeah, when I put my thoughts down on paper, what's kind of at the top?
Yes, I want to do my YouTube adventures, but I definitely want to go back into racing.
What's your biggest barrier to doing that?
Yeah, it's the same old thing with motorsport. At the end of the day, you've got to find
someone who's going to back that program. But I think there are some good opportunities in
particularly in GT racing. I think there seems that have got funding these days,
remarkably, because it's still a very expensive business. And I think that potentially,
there's a, you know, if you can match some enough media coverage to make it worthwhile and provide
value to those sponsors, there's a way to do it. So I think that that'll be the case. Just got to,
you know, go out there and meet some people, show I can still do it, and see if I still can.
Well, hopefully you can help me today, figure out a line, because it's about three degrees
outside this van. And we are at Donnington Park for a track day with Hera, who I proudly partnered
with for the podcast. So I am lucky enough to have my 600LT outside. I hope you do better
today than you, Mr. Suzuki. Well, you never actually gave me any, you can be five laps of
training in a Suzuki at Dunsfold. And then my competitor was put in a faster version of the
same car, which had racing seats in it, which were a lot lighter than the comfort seats in my
variant, and proved to be faster down every given straight. Do you want me to get the data out,
because I thought this might come up? Yes. So yeah, you drove, there were two different cars.
You each drove. For context, everybody, that's wondering what the hell was going on now.
Ben once invited me, and the film is on YouTube, we'll put the link in the description below,
to compete against Matt Armstrong at the Top Gear track in the original pair of Suzuki
Lianas used on the show. And I was fairly unhappy with my time, because I've proved in other
sessions on other videos, on channels, the time extremely quick every now and then. Matt's channel,
we are, we are winning currently in the races. But on this particular day, I was
interestingly slow. However, I went first, and the car that I was driving mysteriously broke
when Matt did his first lap in it, and he was given the car that the F1 drivers used instead,
a different car. And the lap times were quite large. So did you have any explanation?
Yes. So let's conflate this story. So Matt beat you by about two seconds.
And the car you were driving had a, did have a fault, it did have a fault,
okay, that cost you approximately 0.5 of a second. So if you deduct that from the time
lost, you were still one and a half seconds off his time. And I can explain why that was the case.
He literally drove the wheels off that car. There was nothing left. It was on the, it was,
it was cornering on its mirrors. He had, you have to kind of throw that thing around. It's
front wheel drive, it's very different to what you're used to. I ended up in the field. You've
been fast in the big powerful stuff. And that's, and that's quite correct, what you've done on
his channel. But the Suzuki, it does need a bit of, you've got to grab by the scruff of the neck.
So if you come back, you probably go a bit quicker. But yeah, it was unfortunate. You
were slightly underpowered on the day. But we fixed that fault and that car is ready to deploy
again. Well, I hope to see many more people sat in that car and appreciate you for sitting in my
van for over an hour telling us all these amazing enriching top gear stories, because I think it
brings back so much nostalgia and fun and joy to so many people listening and gives them an even
larger window into something that's probably a big part of why they love cars too. So Ben, thank you
for coming into the van. If you want to guys, Ben's book right here is absolutely fabulous and
just extends that window that we're talking about there of knowledge and stories and fun.
And I've put a link below to that book in the description.
Thank you.
Because it's a great Christmas present.
Thanks for watching. I think we should do a coffee morning down at the track.
And because I'm, yeah, I'm down pretty regularly now at the top gear track and I'm loving it.
And there are a lot more cool cars to drive. So I think we should, yeah, enjoy it.
Happy Christmas, everyone.
Bye bye.
About this episode
Ben Collins, the former Stig from Top Gear, shares behind-the-scenes stories about his time on the show, discussing the pressures of anonymity and the unique experiences that came with the role. He reflects on his decision to leave, the challenges of maintaining the Stig's secret identity, and the legal battles that followed his departure. Collins also talks about his current endeavors, including his YouTube channel and new projects, while reminiscing about the camaraderie and creativity that defined the early days of Top Gear. His insights into racing and the automotive world make for an engaging listen.
Original notes
To grab yourself some winter essentials from HERA with 15% of sitewide even during sales! Then use my code RTS and click the link here - https://www.awin1.com/cread.php?awinmid=85817&awinaffid=1737213&ued=https%3A%2F%2Fheraclothing.comWhat really happens behind the visor of the world’s most mysterious racing driver?Today, Ben Collins — the man who spent years as Top Gear’s Stig — returns with the most revealing conversation yet.From the pressure of secretly outperforming F1 drivers to hiding his identity from Clarkson for nearly a year…from close calls, killer cats, and backstage chaos to the High Court battle that nearly erased his entire legacy — this episode uncovers everything he could never say before.Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel for more exciting content about your favourite shows and celebrities. Hit the bell icon to stay updated on all our latest episodes👍 Like, Comment, and Share this episode. Join our discussion in the comments sectionCheck out Tweak: https://www.tweakuk.com/🔗 Follow Us:Instagram: @Roadtosuccessofficialpodcast@benedictfowler
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