The Man in the White Suit: The Stig, Le Mans, The Fast Lane and Me

Written by Ben Collins

Narrated by Ben Collins

The Stig gets his kit off and reveals how he came to be Top Gear's iconic racing driver and so much more - including what it's like to thrash an Aston Martin DBS, train for the Army and face the terror of Jeremy Clarkson's underwear…

When the Black Stig disappeared off the end of an aircraft carrier in 2003, we were introduced to The White Stig. Faster. Stranger. Harder to keep clean. And ever since, millions have wondered – who is The Man in the White Suit? They're about to find out.

Ben Collins caught the car the bug young, kicking his dad's boss in the balls for not giving him a company Jag. This was the attitude that eventually led him to spend seven years sharing a cabin with Jeremy Clarkson's underwear, James May's PhD thesis and Richard Hammond's hairspray. Because he is The Stig.

Now he tells all about life inside the iconic white helmet. What it's like to guide a blind ex-RAF officer around the Top Gear track; pit a drug dealer's Mitsubishi Evo against a Trojan tank; set a Vauxhall Monara against Chloe the dancing Ninja; and race double-decker Routemasters against bendy buses. Not to mention all the inside stuff on how the show's amazing driving sequences are made.

He also reveals how he got to be there – setting
a Dunsfold lap time faster than Michael Schumacher's. Breaking records with the best of the best at Daytona and Le Mans.

It's an awesome story, told by an amazing man.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9780007439089

Ben Collins

Ben Collins, better known as The Stig from BBC's internationally acclaimed Top Gear, was the benchmark of speed against which hundreds of celebrities set themselves, and the man that everyone - including Formula One stars Nigel Mansell and Jenson Button - tried and failed to beat. He is also the go-to guy for Hollywood car chases (driving as Bond in Skyfall, and for Batman in The Dark Knight Rises), and has raced successfully in almost every class imaginable, from Touring Cars and Le Mans 24 Hour to the American Stock Car circuit.

Reviews for The Man in the White Suit

[birdsam0610 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I purely read this book because I wanted to know more about The Stig and Top Gear. I didn’t really know anything about Ben Collins prior to this. This book reads more like an autobiography of Ben Collins up to his departure from Top Gear (although it is VERY sketchy on the details and reasons why this happened). We learn about his childhood (interesting), younger days riding karts and various cars (interesting), army days (quite boring) and then we hit Top Gear days. This was by far and away the best part of the book for me. It was interesting to learn that Collins was actually being the Stig on the tube (public transport vs car vs bike vs boat), I would have thought someone else would do that. Riding with Tom Cruise, teaching a blind man to drive the Top Gear track and Richard Hammond’s crash (covered by the man himself in On the Edge), it’s all there. Ben Collins can cover how to drive very fast really, really well. The stories about Top Gear were very entertaining and witty. But towards the end of the book, we suddenly hear about how he is tired about the extreme secrecy he must maintain in his role as The Stig, how he’s getting a bit tired of the whole thing and then…it’s over. Given that the BBC tried to put an injunction on the publication of this book, there must be more! Why does Jeremy Clarkson react so negatively when questioned about Collins as The Stig? Why does Collins himself seem so jealous when a decoy in the form of Michael Schumacher appears on the show? The ending, the leaving is tied up so quickly and perfectly in a big red bow you just know that it’s hiding a dirty big coffee stain underneath. A fairly interesting and light read, this would appeal to Top Gear fans (obviously) and boys interested in cars and racing. I’d also be interested in hearing about what Collins is doing now (surely being on Fifth Gear is incorrect?) but not enough to read another book.

[pdcread · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The 'in-visor' view from behind the scenes at Top Gear.

[ngelina_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Too much army, not enough Top Gear. But still funny.

[5eva5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is Ben Collins story about growing up in California, his time as a racecar driver, his work the army, and his role as the infamous "Splitter" Stig of Top Gear. I, of course, picked this up because I'm a huge fan of The Stig (and, yes, I know he went out in a less than satisfactory manner, but he's still "my" Stig), and I must say it was a much better read than I had expected. The writing is a little bit choppy in the beginning, but gets really good as it goes along until it's almost a page-turner. It's obvious that Collin's isn't a professional writer, but I think he did a fairly good job here, and if you're interested in our former Stig, it's quite a captivating read. If you are, however, looking for some dark secrets about Top Gear that would have justified the overblown lawsuit business, you need to look elsewhere - there's nothing here, apart from Collins' identity (which was about to be revealed anyway), that justifies the madness that ensued.

[skybalon · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

If you like Top Gear and want to read some (but maybe not enough) about the behind the scenes stuff, this is worth reading. The author certainly writes some fairly purple prose for a race car driver and then follows up with not just racing jargon, but English racing jargon which almost makes parts of the book unreadable. Not a bad read, just not a great one.