While much of the focus surrounding the explosion of success that BBC's Top Gear achieved through its early noughties reboot centers on the 'Clarkson, Hammond, and May' trio, many diehard fans had similar euphoria for the fourth member of the team; The Stig.
With The Stig came an aura of mystery completely new to the genre, and it all started with Perry McCarthy.
After an admittedly highly problematic stint as a Formula 1 driver, McCarthy made a career switch that would change his life. And now he's coming to New Zealand for next month's CRC Speedshow on July 21–22.
We spoke to the 57-year-old exclusively, ahead of his arrival.
Driven: So, how did the opportunity to be 'The Stig' come about?
Perry: I’d had a really up and down time in motor racing; never having enough money, always fighting, always getting myself into loads of trouble and out of trouble again just to try and get through international motor racing. And the stories were collecting and collecting, and other people used to tell the same stories that I found myself in, and everybody used to say ‘Perry, you’ve got to write a book’.
So I did, and I called it Flat Out, Flat Broke which kind of signified the journey. But it was actually at my book launch … we had a big party in the West End of London and there were a lot of friends there from TV and Formula 1, and Jeremy Clarkson was there because I’d known Jeremy for quite a long time. And it was actually at the book launch that Jeremy actually said ‘hey Perry, listen, we’re bringing Top Gear back on air’.
Back then, it had been off air for a long time. He said ‘we’ve got an idea for you…’ and basically that was it.
He said ‘look, we want this quiet, mysterious racing driver and you’re going to wear black boots, black overalls, black helmet — and we’re going to call you ‘The Gimp’.
And I said, ‘no you’re not.’
So they went back to the drawing board and came back and said ‘how about The Stig?’ and I said ‘that’s fine, let’s go with that.’
Was it a weird transition for you; shifting from a role as public as being a top-tier race driver to basically living in secret?
It’s probably the first time it’s ever been done, to have a role like that and you’ve just got to keep completely quiet. Richard Hammond was always proud of the fact that they had taken the mouthiest driver in motor racing and shut him up!
I said ‘don’t worry about that sunshine, we found the smallest TV presenter we could find, put him in a jet car, and made him even smaller’.
The overriding thing was that all I was going to be doing was standing in this suit, but I kind of thought I could have a lot of fun with it. SO I thought alright, I’m going to make The Stig someone who’s completely off, just off with anybody. Doesn’t want to know about anything. All he understands is being in a car and driving.
And there is actually part of me that’s like that … generally I’m a pretty outgoing, friendly person. But I have my moments where I don’t want to speak to anybody. All I want to do is get in the car and go.
So it was in that moment in time I expanded if you like. Enough people had seen me at circuits over the years, when I’ve been pissed off with my arms folded. And that’s the bit of fun I was having with it, to just … even when the presenters were talking to me I’d just turn my back and walk off because ‘it’s not interesting to The Stig’, you know?
Do you wish that you stayed on the show for longer, knowing how successful it would eventually become?
The show proved to be incredibly successful, even early on, and within a very short time I’d be down at the pub listening to people say ‘who do you think The Stig is?’ and I’d be thinking ‘you’re actually standing next to him, mate’. But I wouldn’t say that, not even for a free lager.
I was completely happy about pulling away when I did, because we got the thing on the road and we got it going, but commercially there was no more angle for me with it. I was true to my word about not talking about it, saying ‘I was the stig’. It was quite restrictive, you couldn’t use the fact that you’re one of the most famous racing drivers in the world now for anything.
We all want and rely upon income, and BBC wages weren’t exactly what I was used to because I was driving for Audi at the time and they were very generous to me in the world championship at Le Mans.
It was just like ‘OK guys, Top Gear’s incredibly successful, the stig is incredibly successful, and this needs to be reflected in what I’m getting paid … and they didn’t agree. No problem to me, zero problem. I just said ‘OK, see you later.’
Do you still keep in touch with Clarkson and the other hosts from Top Gear's reboot?
I bumped into Richard about a year ago, we had a few beers together in London. And then just a few months back I saw James at Newbank, and we had a few drinks together and had a good laugh.
Haven’t seen Jeremy in ages, but whenever I bump into any of them we get on.
We've now seen two seasons each of the new Top Gear and The Grand Tour. Do you follow them still, and do you think one has an upper hand over the other?
The problem is that I’m not often in front of the TV screen, to be quite frank, because I’m travelling and I’ve got business interests. I do feel personally that with the new Top Gear, that the relationships are a trifle wooden between the three presenters. It seems to me to be heavily scripted.
I’m all about timing and banter, having a laugh, and I think the magic of Jeremy James and Richard was that they successfully carried that on as three guys taking the mickey out of each other and having a laugh, and you believed it conversationally. Whereas I’m afraid if we’re tuning in for that with the new Top Gear, for me personally we’re certainly not getting that.
Production values are still very high, but it’s not very easy to throw money at it. Like any business within the BBC, if you’re saying ‘we want over one million pounds an episode to film’, you’ve got to make sure you’re getting the ratings in. Because if that keeps going down the scale, then it doesn’t support some monsterous production budgets.
And remember, Top Gear is also a global player as well. Back when we were doing it it did eventually get to 215 different territories, which were all hopefully paying for it. So it was a cash cow for the BBC, because it was such a great show. But of course if this magic isn’t working between the current three presenters, then it’ll be less popular globally as well and the income will reduce.
What do you do to keep yourself busy these days?
An awful lot of appearances. I give a lot of after-dinner speeches, I used to write comedy sketches before I was a racing driver so I really enjoy being on stage and doing all that. But I’ve got a lot of experience in business, so something there are business speeches where we talk about going motor racing. the business of Formula 1.
And because my career was such a nightmare, I also give motivational speeches [laughs]. And believe me, I had to give myself those on a regular basis.
And, just circling back to Formula 1, our Kiwi Brendon Hartley is going through a rough patch of his own at the moment. What kind of advice could you offer a driver in that position?
Our positions are actually quite different. Brendon is with a massively professional team, Toro Rosso are a very good team, they’ve got top-level people there. You’re then just looking at the question of both performance and reliability.
Now, Brendon was pretty unlucky at Monaco. All his practice times were really good, but they just fell over for him in qualifying. These things can absolutely happen. I’m actually really impressed with Brendon. I love Brendon’s attitude; he reminds me of Shaggy from Scooby Do in a way, I just could not imagine anybody more laid back.
He just seems to be coping with it very very well, and that’s the thing with Formula 1. Mentally, there’s so much pressure on these guys and there is so much happening, that you can upset your own value and your own performance if you can’t cope with the life inside Formula 1.
And Brendon looks to me like he can do that, it’s like water off a duck’s back for him. Inside there may be turmoil, because as racing drivers we feel inside like we’re hunted animals. Your reputation is as good as your last lap to a large degree, but it does look like the team has got faith in him and he’s very talented.
He’s had his fair share of bad luck this year, but there’s nothing there, in my personal opinion, that makes him look bad.
I would like to see Brendon stay with the team, and let’s just see… He’s going to get some results this year at some point in time. I’m actually rooting for him because I quite like the guy.