who was the stig on top gear
Several professional racing drivers have played the Stig on Top Gear over the years, not just one person. The best‑known confirmed Stigs are Perry McCarthy, Ben Collins, and, more recently revealed, Phil Keen.
Core identities
- Black Stig : Perry McCarthy, a British racing driver who wore the original black racing suit in the early 2000s reboot of Top Gear before the character was written out by “driving off” an aircraft carrier.
- First White Stig : Ben Collins, a British racing driver and stunt driver whose identity became public during a legal dispute surrounding his autobiography The Man in the White Suit in 2010.
- Second White Stig : Phil Keen, a British GT and endurance racer, identified in 2024 by Jeremy Clarkson as the later Stig who wore the white suit from around 2010 into the 2020s.
Other notes and jokes
- On one episode, the show jokingly “unmasked” the Stig as Formula 1 legend Michael Schumacher, but this was treated as a gag rather than the real, full‑time identity.
- Over time, various specials and international versions used other “Stigs” (such as German or American versions), but the main UK character people mean by “the Stig” refers to McCarthy, Collins, and Keen.
Quick HTML fact table
| Version | Driver | Suit color | Era (approx.) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Black Stig | Perry McCarthy | [3][1]Black | [1]Early 2000s reboot | [1]
| White Stig (1st) | Ben Collins | [3][1]White | [1]Mid‑2000s to 2010 | [3][1]
| White Stig (2nd) | Phil Keen | [9][3]White | [3]c. 2010–2022 | [9][3]
Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.