BF2S Forums Is the black Stig back?

New footage released on YouTube today shows the Black Stig, Top Gear’s original star driver, climbing out of the ocean, raising speculation that the BBC may consider bringing the character back after the current Stig's identity was revealed last month.

The original Stig, the masked racing driver who became a household name, was the brainchild of Jeremy Clarkson when the programme was relaunched in 2002. The character was retired around the time he was identified as British racing driver Perry McCarthy. The Stig's name was based on the monicker given to new boys at Clarkson’s school, Repton.

A press release that accompanied the video announced: “until now, the original Stig from BBC Top Gear was thought to have been killed back in 2003, when he drove a modified Jaguar XJS off the end of HMS Invincible aircraft carrier at 109mph. . . The nation was shocked that the Stig was dead. However, recent footage has been found on YouTube showing that he miraculously survived.”

Until he was unmasked few people apart from a handful of BBC production staff and journalists knew the true identity of the current white-suited Stig. The name of the Stig, beloved of the show’s hosts Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, has been an open secret within the motoring world for some years, but the media have refrained from publishing his name to uphold the spirit of the programme.

Late last month, however, a newspaper outed Ben Collins, a Bristol-based former American speedway driver and stuntman, after following up a story in a Bristol newspaper about a man commissioning a photographic studio in the city to produce limited edition prints of the character.

Before Collins, Perry McCarthy played the Stig for 22 episodes of Top Gear, until his identity was revealed. McCarthy said he was the original Stig in the second edition of his autobiography Flat Out Flat Broke, which, contrary to popular belief, was published after the black Stig was retired.

Adding further layers of mystery to the legend of the Stig, the press release continues: "how he survived, nobody knows. Some believe he used the nitrous octane equipment from the Jag to breathe. Some believe he can communicate with dolphins and they cared for him. Has he returned because he can sense White Stig has had his identity exposed?"

It remains to be seen whether the BBC will consider a return to the former incarnation of the character or if this is little more than an elaborate hoax.