Ben Collins has what might be the ideal celebrity life. For millions of television fans, the character he played is immediately identifiable. Still, many of those same fans wouldn’t recognize his face, allowing him to maintain some freedom in his daily life.
Best of all, that daily life of his is built around auto racing, thanks in part to the television fame he enjoys with relative anonymity.
Collins served as The Stig for some of the most successful seasons and episodes of Top Gear, the BBC’s legendary car show. Hidden away behind a full face helmet, sun visor and white fire suit, Collins played the part of the mute, single-minded tamed racing driver during the show’s sketches – all while taking on the very real duty of the show’s top test driver.
That gig ended when Collins wrote a book about his experiences behind the helmet – a tome the show’s producers said was a violation of his agreement and a betrayal to the show. There are two sides to every story, and Collins makes it clear there were other factors involved in writing his first book. He’s now managed to put leaving Top Gear (and the show’s now defunct lawsuit against him) behind him.
These days, he’s continuing his professional racing career in Le Mans and becoming one of the world’s top movie stunt drivers. If you enjoyed the Land Rover Defender chasing the Audi through Istanbul in Skyfall, it was Collins who really steered MI6 through danger.
Serving as the celebrity instructor for the recent Villain’s Academy with the 2015 Jaguar F-Type Coupe, I had a chance to sit and chat with Collins about everything driving, Top Gear and a man’s relationship with cars.
“The best teaching experience I’ve had was working with the military,” Collins explained. “With their training, they’re programed to learn quickly. They have self discipline and an open mind – two conditions you must have to learn well.”
As for Top Gear, it was Collins job to train countless celebrities the finer points of track driving for the show’s Star in a Reasonably Priced Car segment. From behind his white helmet, Collins would use his Stig guide to help the actors, sports figures and politicians drive the fastest (and maybe only) laps of their lives.
Test Drive with Tanner Foust of America’s ‘Top Gear’
“I had about 45 minutes to work with each driver before they had to run their laps,” Collins said. “So, I had to teach the basics in a short time. Those fundamentals are different from road driving. We’re talking about keeping your vision further ahead. staying smooth with acceleration and steering and such. It’s all about learning car control. Most people pick it up quickly enough.”
When not pushing super models to put their toes down in a cheap Chevy, Collins was fortunate enough to drive a collection of the greatest performance cars in existence around the Top Gear track to rank vehicles on the show’s Power Lap board. Collins got his gloved hands on Ferraris to Lamborghinis, Bugattis to Porches. If you can name a modern make of elite driving machine, he got a crack at it.
Collins didn’t hesitate to name his all-time favorite: “The Ferrari 430 Scuderia. The weight was centralized around the driver. And it had a handbrake – the last Ferrari to have a proper one.”
As for what the man who drove every super car drives at home, he transports his three kids around Bristol in a Volkswagen van. And that’s a trend I see a lot in race car drivers. They get their adrenaline out in their job and driver very pedestrian vehicles at home.
When it comes to those everyman cars on everyday roads, Collins is more than ready to share his opinions. This is where he opens up through a love of automobiles and is just another gearhead. He’s not a fan of the modern driver aids that are slowly separating drivers from the roads.
“I believe features like ABS and electronic power steering make cars less safe. It makes the driving experience numb. In the long run, it’ll be drivers who pay the price for that. I hope people will reengage with driving in the future. But, it’s more likely that insurance companies in the future will push for self-driving cars.”
“By then, car lovers will be a sub-culture.”
And, it’s safe to say Collins will be a leading member of that culture because loving cars is what he does best. When he’s not on TV, making 007 look good or turning Le Mans laps, Collins is a regular guy – a working father who’ll talk cars with you forever, if his schedule allows.
In that sense, it’s a blessing he rose to fame behind the Stig’s visor.
