Video: Jeremy Clarkson interview on the Stig’s exposed identity

By Brett Davis | September 09th, 2010

Jeremy Clarkson was interviewed by Witney TV recently to talk about the Stig unveiling controversy and how Top Gear feels about it. The video below is just a teaser, but it suggests Top Gear is ‘over’ the whole situation and is open enough to talk about it.

Clarkson also seems to mention the direction for the show in the future now that Ben Collins has been uncovered as the Stig, mentioning that Top Gear is ‘damaged’.

Look out for the full interview in the future, it will probably go up on the Tube soon. If it does, we’ll be quick to let you know.

t39

For me, personally, the fact that Stig was a mystery person, was not among the main reasons why I like to watch Top Gear.
Lu

there is a typo.

tog gear, sure sounds funny.

Fenno

Tonight on tog gear we test the new speedo and put a new star in our reasonably priced bra…

CA – Why is Ikea an anti spam word?

http://caradvice.com.au Brett Davis

That is funny.
Fixed, cheers guys.

Fenno: I haven’t the foggiest idea, very strange.
andronicus

It’s the name of Toyota’s new vehicle. Comes in a box and you put it together yourself. They figured “well we cant seem to put it together properly, you have a crack.”
andronicus

CA is just testing some new anti-spam words. A rejected idea was Bunnings Warehouse but that just seemed a bit….wordy, hence Ikea.

Man, I am on fire with these stupid cracks.

Eric V

We’ve had the black Stig who was shot off an aircraft carrier.
Then the white Stig, well he can now be used as a crash test dummy.
Enter stage left, the RED STIG.

Well I reckon it’s a good idea

Brad

Me too, and red goes fastest!

toxic_horse

Same old format. stupid challenges, lets race a Ferrari with a bullet train yawwwwwwwwn.

This car (that you will never drive) is a poofteenth faster than (another car you will never drive)

The show should just end while its ahead.

andronicus

why would i want to watch it if they only restricted themselves to cars that i could drive? “Here we pit a Toyota Corolla against a mighty Bullet Train! What will be faster?!”

Tony Gillard

I agree the show has become too much about the hosts and not enough about the cars.
NIK516

top gear should get over itself and alow some one else to make some money of the franchise, i dont see clarkson complaining about the amounts of money he makes of the top gear name ?
go the stig he has a family to.
Save it for the track

So the concept of a contract and presumably someon’s ‘word’ seems to mean nothing? I understand that whenever someone is signed up to be ‘the stig’, that they are supposed to be anonymous and that is the understanding. It’s in their contract. Which even a court seems to deem not to be valid.
.
I think the concept of a ‘guest’ celebrity race driver either for a season or on an episode by episode basis has merit. Then if the show keeps going they could wait a season or two to bring in a new stig or create a whole new driving character. They could refresh the whole concept and re-do all merchandising etc.
.

Murrr

I seem to recall reading that Collins’ contract had expired before all this happened, so he wasn’t going back on his word. And also from what I’ve seen, he was being paid only 70k for being the Stig, while the other presenters were making 500k & Clarkson was making 2-3 million. I’m not suggesting that he should have been paid as much money as the others, just that he should have been paid more like 300k or so. That seems reasonable for the part he played. Also, he spoke to Andy Wilman before the autobiography was released and Wilman just started threatening him instead of accepting what was going to happen and moving on, which would have been the right thing to do.