The Top Gear Story

by Martin Roach

  Hammond had to fly out a week earlier to take a crash course in dog sledding and he would also need to ski for long sections of the trek. He paired up with American Matty McNair, an experienced Polar explorer, and both were equipped with mini snowmobiles, known as ‘skidoos’. The entire production crew was initially based at a town called Resolute in Nunavut, said by many to be the coldest inhabited place on earth. From this starting point, they were set to race across approximately 400 miles of icy tundra, frozen oceans and mountains of giant ice boulders.

  The first three days went well but as the teams encroached further north, conditions became shockingly bad. Along their way, Clarkson and May came across a crashed C-47 aircraft, which was riddled with bullet holes: the accident had taken place in 1949 and the crew suffered only minor injuries. The story goes that subsequent bullet holes were made by decades of passing explorers, although internet conspiracy theorists had other ideas …

  The trek also revealed that the famous on-screen bickering between the three presenters is only partially for the camera. Admitting the on-screen characters are slightly exaggerated from their real-life ones, May revealed that on the polar trip he came close to hitting Clarkson, who he finds ‘brash’ (Jeremy thinks James is pedantic). One particular topic of argument was Clarkson’s iPod choices: King Crimson, Genesis, Guns N’ Roses, all served with a garnish of Jeremy talking over the top: ‘We drove each other insane. I wanted to bash his head in with a shovel. But you know, we are blokes so we didn’t dwell on it and ultimately no harm was done. Fundamentally, we are good mates. Mostly.’

  So, what stopped the bickering? A terrifying moment when the thin crust of ice their Toyota was balanced precariously on seemed about to break and plunge them into a fatal -50°C ocean. ‘That was the most scared we’ve ever been,’ James has admitted. ‘Every muscle in my body was primed for death. There was a hammer in the car for breaking the window in the event of going under, and I’d loosened it so that I could free it with one finger. I was rehearsing it in my mind …’

  The race was harder for Richard, although at one point his sled overtook them while they were crossing the first of two fields of ice boulders. Neuroscientist Dr Kerry Spackman gave some insight into the very real dangers the trio faced on their trek to the Pole: ‘If you’re sitting at rest, one third of your total energy is used by the brain, so even though you have your liver, your kidney, your muscles, your heart, your digestive system and so on, your brain takes one third of the energy. The brain has a very narrow operating window of how much oxygen it needs, what temperature it needs and it is really very delicate. That’s why a lot of your body’s function is to keep the brain at exactly the right temperature and with the right amount of oxygen. If you take twenty quick breaths, you feel dizzy because you’ve just changed your oxygen and CO2 levels in your blood, you haven’t really done a lot yet – you feel terrible!’

  So, when the trio travelled to the Pole and the temperatures were so extreme, for all their joking about, this was dangerous territory. Spackman continues: ‘Changing the temperature [so dramatically] just completely upsets the whole biochemistry, it’s a really delicate thing. All sorts of things happen: the brain basically goes into preservation mode when it’s under stress with low oxygen or low temperature. The brain is selfish: it says, “Look after me first, give me everything I need to keep functioning!” When you are operating in severe cold, the brain basically starts shutting down many of its functions and what that means is the body’s reactions get slower and slower, attention levels go, the ability to focus disappears, the ability to think about things, concentrate, prioritise, all those things just go out the door. You can stop blood going to your arm for a short while but it will come back okay; stop blood going to your brain for a few seconds and those neurons will just die. People can die.’

  It was the furthest north that any humans had ever driven a car but sadly this was perhaps not what the fabulous episode will be best remembered for. It was just after safely negotiating that about-to-crack ice sheet that May and Clarkson did something that was to backfire massively when they returned to the UK: they poured themselves a celebratory gin and tonic. The ride was understandably bumpy, so at one point James asked Jeremy if he could, ‘slow down while I cut the lemon.’ Given they were on top of a frozen ocean, Clarkson even said to camera: ‘Don’t write in to complain about us drinking and driving, because we’re sailing!’ In fact, given there are no roads in that part of the Arctic, they were not actually breaking any laws. Also, the gin drinking was part of a running gag where May and Clarkson laugh about how much easier their challenge had been than Hammond’s (who was far more exposed to the elements).

  With Clarkson and May at the finish line and telecommunications between the two teams erratic at best due to the inclement conditions, the production team decided it was unfair to insist Hammond also finished, not least because he was so far behind. Emil Grimmson is chairman of Arctic Trucks in Greenland, the company who modified the trucks for the programme, and he was impressed, saying Clarkson and May, ‘did quite well for novices.’

  The three presenters were then taken to ice runways and sent home on specially adapted snow planes. Life was not so comfortable for the rest of the crew and support team, however, who had to do an about turn and trek back through 400 miles of ice and snow!

  A nice flourish to this brilliant piece of television came at the end, with a ritual the team often employ for specials: they changed the end credits. In this case, their first names were replaced with ‘Sir Ranulph’. It was a fun gimmick that the show had employed before: for the Winter Olympics special, everybody was called either Björn, Benny, Agnetha or Anni-Frid in honour of ABBA; for the American road trip, they took suitably redneck names such as Cletus Clarkson, Earl Hammond Jr., Ellie May May, and Rosco P. Stig (all the crew were renamed Billy-Bob); the African special, they replaced their first names with Archbishop Desmond, Vietnam saw them rechristened Francis Ford (as in Coppola), and for the Sport Relief special, ‘Top Gear Ground Force’, they were renamed Alan Clarkson, Charlie May and Handy Hammond. According to some sources, the only time this gimmick has featured in a regular episode is in the final show of Series 8, when they were roadies for The Who and ran the ‘Transit van Challenge’ and so took the names Lee, Wayne and Terry in honour of van drivers the world over.

  On their safe return home from the icy world of the Pole, however, trouble was afoot. As May and Clarkson sipped gin and tonic thousands of miles from home, they couldn’t have known that their actions, when broadcast, would cause a flurry of complaints. One viewer was so incensed about the ‘blatant use of alcohol while driving’ that he took the matter to the BBC complaints division.

  The scene which showed them drinking was done as a comic device only, with no intent to stir up trouble, unlike some of the show’s more obviously confrontational moments. However, although 4.5 million viewers watched the programme – a great ratings success – and only a handful complained, the BBC Trust’s editorial complaints division was duty-bound to investigate. Bizarrely, some viewers also complained about cut-away shots of the race being ‘staged’ and misleading, complaints that were subsequently dismissed. There was also a complaint (also dismissed) about the shot of a frost-bitten penis.

  Unlike with Clarkson’s Nazi salute/Polish SatNav gag, in regards to the drink-driving accusation, the Trust did uphold the complaint, saying, ‘the scene of drinking whilst driving was not editorially justified in the context of a family show pre-watershed.’ This broke guidelines and was thus criticised as it could be seen to glamorise the misuse of alcohol.

  The normally mellow James May was clearly angered by the Trust’s decision. Speaking to newspapers from his London home, he insisted that they had deserved the drink: ‘It’s bloody hard work driving to the Pole and having a nice gin and tonic was something we totally deserved,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘We were in the middle of nowhere – literally in the middle of the sea, and we were neither in any danger
, nor posed any danger to anyone or anything for hundreds of miles.’ He also pointed out that they were far from drunk, but merely enjoying a drink.

  Andy Wilman and his team have always been resolute defenders of the programme if they feel any controversial footage or comments are justified and in response to the BBC’s criticism, the production team’s statement said: ‘The item was filmed in an uninhabitable area of the North Pole, in international waters and they weren’t shown to be drunk or not in control of the car.’

  But the furore wasn’t over there: Greenpeace plunged into the fray. As we have seen, the show and environmental campaigners have previously locked horns over various features on the programme. This time, Greenpeace were appalled, describing the Polar race as ‘beggaring belief’ and said it was ‘highly irresponsible’; they also criticised the BBC as a public service broadcasting channel for screening the footage. Emily Armistead of Greenpeace was quoted as saying: ‘The Arctic is one of the areas most endangered by climate change. Perhaps Clarkson and his cronies felt that climate change wasn’t destroying the Arctic quick enough, so they decided to do this. It’s quite astounding, really. They are taking some of the most polluting vehicles on the road to spew out far more CO2 than is necessary in an area that is suffering the worst damage from climate change. It does matter that Top Gear keeps on doing things like this.’

  Back in Chipping Norton, seven climate protestors proceeded to dump horse manure on Clarkson’s lawn, with a banner saying, ‘This is what you’re landing us in.’

  Other times, however, Top Gear has confronted the environmentalist campaigners head-on with its features. Typically, these are riddled with sarcasm and irony, though: for example, we have James May in Series 10, Episode 3, saying the world is becoming more and more crowded and there is increasing pressure from environmentalists to have a small car. Cue one of Top Gear’s funniest-ever features. This personal favourite is the episode which sees Jeremy Clarkson drives the world’s smallest car to work … literally into work, taking the Peel P50 into the Top Gear offices themselves. The 1963 car was built on the Isle of Man and cost only £918; it boasted a 49cc moped engine capable of 100 miles to the gallon. Measuring only 54 by 41 inches, it was recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records as the smallest production car ever made, which meant that for the 6’ 5” Clarkson, just getting inside presented a challenge in itself.

  Eventually he crammed himself in and set off for the BBC’s west London offices in the little beauty. An interesting aside was that as he was driving along in the minute car, he pointed out the Top Gear camera crew’s car was Congestion Charge-free as it was a Lexus hybrid. Arriving at White City, Clarkson pulled the car into reception before driving into a lift. Newsreader Fiona Bruce also got into the lift and then helped him out (the P50 doesn’t have a reverse gear). As she walked off, Jeremy made another one of his ‘accidental’ quips when he said she had a nice bottom and then added, ‘I said that out loud, didn’t I?’ It’s a gag we know well by now, but it’s still very funny.

  While various Top Gear staff looked at the car and the news presenter, and revered journalist John Humphries even drove the P50 around the corridors, Clarkson was seen ‘phoning’ Hammond and apparently asked him why he doesn’t clean his teeth more often – he was astounded that it might cost £4,000 to have them whitened. It was another of the running gags that makes Top Gear at times more akin to a sitcom than a factual car programme.

  Then Jeremy headed off in the vehicle to an important BBC meeting, sitting in the car at a table ready for a meeting tabled as ‘How to Reduce the Carbon Footprint of Our Ethnically Diverse Disability Access Policy for Single-Parent Mothers’. The camera panned across the table of attendees, showing all sorts of ethnic minorities: so we had a hippy, a white man, a black man, a dwarf, a Sikh, a Japanese woman and then JC in his tiny car. It’s brazen, it’s blatant … the team know it will offend certain viewers but they don’t really care, it’s all done for humour. After driving past the background of the newsroom and announcing the P50 is the future of city driving, Clarkson was then left stranded by newsreader Dermot Murnaghan, who turned him the wrong way round on the main road outside the BBC. Classic Top Gear!

  And there have been other features which Top Gear could claim to promote environmental issues. In Series 12, Episode 7, James May fronted a piece about the new Honda FCX, a vehicle that he described as, ‘the most important car in 100 years.’ The Los Angeles’ test highlighted the stunning potential for Honda’s new hydrogen car, whose only emission was water. It’s an electric car but one with no batteries, instead it uses a hydrogen fuel cell. James started to explain the technology behind the miracle car and even suggested viewers could switch channels while he did the boring science bit. Indeed, as he droned on, even the cameraman scanned across a beach where they were filming to focus on a bunch of busty, bikini-clad girls playing volleyball. But the piece was not just a jest: May harshly derided previous electric cars as ‘appalling little plastic snot boxes’ but passionately championed the hydrogen Honda. The feature closed with James looking down on LA, while lamenting the forthcoming energy crisis: ‘This,’ he said, was ‘the car of the future’.

  In Series 10, Top Gear ran a piece that proved you don’t need a car at all in a modern city. It wasn’t perhaps their intention, but that’s ultimately what they did prove. They staged one of their most preposterous races in Episode 5: James May was ostensibly showcasing the brand new Mercedes ‘Chelsea Tractor’ 4x4, Richard Hammond was to cycle across town on a state-of-the-art carbon fibre racing bike, while Jeremy Clarkson was to take a powerboat up the River Thames and The Stig would use only public transport.

  They were to start in west London and the finishing line was City Airport, right across the capital in the East. The Stig got himself an Oyster Card so that he could hop on and off buses and tubes without needing to mess about with change, although we were told the card is, ‘useful if you have no understanding of money.’ Surprisingly, the normally laid-back James May soon becomes irate in the ludicrous London congestion and even called one particularly aggressive driver a ‘bullying bus-driving Nazi’, words perhaps more likely to come from Clarkson’s mouth.

  At first, Hammond was flying along and appeared to be an easy winner, but The Stig and Clarkson began to catch him. For good measure, they threw in a red herring about The Stig’s identity: when he sat on the Tube, he picked up a discarded newspaper but when he saw the sports-page headline, ‘LEWIS ROARS TO F1 GREATNESS’, he threw it down in disgust, which suggests that maybe he could be a rival F1 driver after all or even Lewis himself double-bluffing.

  Eventually, Hammond and his bike was declared victor, but Clarkson was gutted – not just for losing the race but also because of what the result said about the petrol engine. He chastised Richard, saying, ‘You’ve ruined Top Gear!’ and suggested this would now have to be the last-ever show. The Stig arrived next, beating James May’s car by 15 minutes. Single-handedly, the team had proved that for city living, you don’t need a car – a final insult to the combustion engine.

  CHAPTER 20

  The Stig Versus Top Gear

  In retrospect, all the speculation about the true identity of The Stig seems odd … because in Series 4, the real Stig actually appeared in the studio, without his helmet on, in full view of the public. So, who was he?

  The BBC never wanted us to know. It was rumoured that initially only three people (Andy Wilman and two other producers) knew the true identity of the second Stig; apparently the presenters were also kept in the dark at first. However, in 2010 the man behind the white mask decided to publish his memoir with HarperCollins, which led to a bitter and high profile wrangle in court. The BBC and the Top Gear production team reacted angrily to news of the impending publication and announced an immediate attempt to gain an injunction to prevent its release. Perhaps the most anger came from an always-vocal Andy Wilman, whose blog told it as he saw it, saying the BBC had a right to protect the character’s anonymi
ty ‘from a bunch of chancers’ who were ‘hoping to cash in on it’. He also described The Stig’s identity mystery as ‘one of the best and most harmless TV secrets’, a passionate summary that was hard to argue against.

  The legal discussion was rightly held in private – as the court stated, to make it a public hearing would completely defeat the object of the anonymity issue – and the process took over a day and a half. Eventually it was announced that the judge had rejected the BBC’s call for an injunction and The Stig was free to publish his work. Indeed, this had always been HarperCollins’ argument: that he had a ‘perfectly legitimate right’ to release his book. However, the BBC stated that the driver in question had signed a confidentiality agreement and to reveal his identity would ruin the enjoyment of millions of Top Gear fans.

  And so The Stig was revealed as Ben Collins, aged thirty-three from Bristol, a former Formula 3 driver and stuntman. The secret was out.

  Several weeks later, on 5 October 2010, the judge explained his decision to allow HarperCollins to publish The Stig’s memoir, saying his identity was in the public domain. In a public ruling, Mr Justice Morgan said: ‘In the present case, the identity of Mr Collins as The Stig is in the public domain. If that has caused and/or will cause harm to the BBC, I do not see how any further harm will be caused to the BBC if Mr Collins is not allowed to publish his autobiography [The Man In The White Suit] in time for the 2010 Christmas market.’

  Ben Collins actually attended court for some of the proceedings but was not seen in the public areas – again, with some speculation suggesting he was The Stig, a sighting would have defeated the object of the court case. In numerous TV interviews, he himself later pointed out that his name had first been mentioned as a possible Stig two years previously in the Radio Times. In the H&SE report into Hammond’s crash, Ben Collins was referred to as someone who, ‘worked closely with Top Gear as a high performance driver and consultant’, which perhaps didn’t leave much to the imagination.