The Stig has become something of a legend on Top Gear despite the fact that no one knows his identity. He’s an enigma wrapped in a mystery clad in a white helmet and he knows how to drive. Aside from his superhuman driving skills, he’s just like the rest of us, but now he’s been made into a giant statue which is very unlike the rest of us.
They’re calling it Big Stig because, unsurprisingly, it is very big. It measures 30 feet tall and is currently being carted on a flatbed truck from the official Top Gear test track in Surrey to its new home in Poland. I think this is where Jeremy Clarkson would say that it’s the biggest Stig, in the world.
Yes, it does seem a bit odd that they built a #BigStig for Poland, but this particular stunt makes more sense than a lot of the others that we’ve seen on the show. Big Stig will come to the end of his journey in Warsaw where he’ll stand next to the Palace of Culture and Science to commemorate the launch of a new channel called BBC Brit which will begin airing in Poland on February 1st.
According to the Top Gear blog, Big Stig is made of fiberglass and should only be cleaned with warm, soapy, water. He also shouldn’t be fed any Wotsits. I had no idea what that meant so I Googled and, for those of you on this side of the pond, think Cheetos. On the way to Warsaw, Big Stig will be stopping in Amsterdam, Berlin and Poznan.
BBC Brit will be the new home of Top Gear in Poland and several other European countries. It will also feature programs on science, business, food, and sports, but Top Gear is going to be a huge draw.
The show is currently broadcast in 170 countries and has 350 million viewers making it the 2013 “Most Widely Watched Factual TV Program’ according to Guinness World Records. It might also be one of the most controversial as the guys seem to delight in getting themselves in trouble when they’re outside the UK.
They were accused of using a racial slur while filming in Myanmar and were more recently run out of Argentina over accusations that the license plate on one of their cars was a reference to the Falklands War.
Wonder if they checked to make sure no one slapped a potentially offensive sticker on Big Stig’s butt before he left Surrey?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuS5ZyQhvsk
