Our favorite segment during the premier of Top Gear season 14 was watching James May being driven by The Stig in the 2009 BMW 760Li as he raced the Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG. You can check out the clip after the jump.

Refresher:

2009 BMW 760Li: 6.0L turbocharged V12 making 535-hp and 550 lb-ft of torque. Mated to an 8-speed automatic, 0-60 mph comes in just 4.5seconds with a top speed of 160 mph.
2009 Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG: 6.2L V8 producing 518-hp and 465 lb-ft of torque. The engine is mated to a 7-speed automatic and assists with a 0-60 mph time of 5.2 seconds with a top speed of 150 mph.

Click through for the video.

- By: Omar Rana

BBC has released a new trailer for Top Gear Series 14, which will make its debut on November 15. Once again, the trailer features the Top Gear team when they were children talking about the trials and tribulations of growing up.

Click through for the video.

- By: Kap Shah

“Last week I wrote about my recent trip to America, and to be honest it didn’t go down well,” Clarkson said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been on the receiving end of such a blizzard of bile. One man called me an ‘imbosile’. Hundreds more suggested that it’d be better for everyone if I just stayed at home in future.”

“You know the Stig. The all-white racing driver we use on Top Gear. Well, we were filming him walking through the Mojave desert when lo and behold a lorry full of soldiers rocked up and arrested him. He was unusual. He wasn’t fat. He must therefore be a Muslim.”

No details on why The Stig was arrested. Separately, Top Gear.com is reporting that the Stig was arrested in Dublin “by a FRIENDLY POLICEMAN following an ALLEGED INCIDENT of some kind.”

No idea who or what to believe here – but we thought we’d let you know.

- By: Omar Rana

Source: TimesOnline

The blokes at BBC have just confirmed that the next-series of Top Gear will be in HD. That means you’ll see all the supercars, Ken Block drifting, racing and The Stig in crystal clear high-definition.

Jeremy Clarkson has confirmed that the filming of Series 14 is well underway and if all goes as planned, it should be on your TV screens by mid-November.

Until then, you’ll have to stick to FaceTube.

- By: Kap Shah

Source: Top Gear

BBC’s ‘Where’s Stig?’ Book: As a kid I loved looking for Waldo; however at times I would get so pissed over not being able to find the little stripped shirt sucker that I ripped the book into pieces. Now, as a huge car fanatic, I would love spending hours looking for none other than – The Stig. BBC is selling the book on Amazon and we suggest you purchase it for your little one. – Amazon (via AutoBlog)

Upgrading egmCarTech: Yesterday, Stephen told you about how we’re working on a new egmCarTech – and by ‘new’ we mean more than just some minor visual changes. The new egmCarTech is going to more interactive, will allow you to follow us during our test-drive and reviews like never before, will have a very organized video and reviews page and much more. However, we will never sell out and move away from our blog format since that’s what our visitors have come to love expect of us. Either way, let us know if you have any suggestions or inputs on what you would like to see in the next version of egmCarTech. We promise we’re listening. On a side not, we’re not promising you anything on when you’ll see the new egmCartech in action – it could be next week, it could be two weeks from now; it all depends on how smoothly everything goes down.

- By: Omar Rana

As you can see by the title, we came across a bunch of random things on the Internet today – so let’s get started.

Traders keep buying old GM stock: Even though GM and the government have warned that the old General Motors’ stock will someday be worthless, traders continue to purchase it hoping they’ll profit from what is really a hodgepodge of outdated factories and a pile of debt left behind when the company exited bankruptcy court protection. –  Detroit Free Press

UK’s graphic anti-texting while driving campaign: WARNING: This video is really (and we mean really) graphic and should hopefully get you to stop texting while driving.

Top Gear gets immortalized in Legos: Legoland designers have created a little tribute to Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, James May, The Stig and Top Gear’s Car of the Year. – Telegraph

- By: Kap Shah

Some say he is none other than Michael Schumacher, which is highly impossible. Some say that there is more than one of him; all we know is – he is none other than The Stig – Top Gear’s ace driver. According to a quarter of Brits recently surveyed, the true identity of The Stig is a biggest mystery of the century – even more than who killed JFK.

Knowing who The Stig is came a head of other mysteries such as who killed Marilyn Monroe, the disappearances of Lord Lucan and Shergar and the Bermuda Triangle.

Our new guess: Captain slow James May is The Stig.

- By: The Daily Auto Editor

Source: Daily Star

While taking a trip to the 2009 Goodwood Festival of Speed, Jay Leno stopped over in London to help Jaguar unveil the new 2010 XJ sedan. Leno also stopped in to make an appearance on Top Gear where he was interviewed by Clarkson and met The Stig.

Follow the jump to see Leno’s video from Jay Leno’s Garage.

- By: The Daily Auto Editor

It’s obviously a bit unbelievable that Michael Schumacher is The Stig. We doubt that Schumacher really has that much time to travel with Hammond, Clarkson and May around the world as they test-drive some of the world’s hottest cars – leading us to believe that there is actually more than one Stig.

While I was catching up on Season 13, I noticed the Stiggy making a photo copy of his helmet in the episode 2. Watch closely and you’ll see Stig walk up behind Hammond and make a copy of his head.

I highly doubt Schumacher has time to film such things.

Check out the video after the jump.

- By: Omar Rana

Yes - Top Gear is back and The Stig was revealed on the premiere of season 13.

To keep it interesting – we’re going to make you watch the video for this one.

- By: Omar Rana

It’s the worst feeling in the world when your internet connection is down – especially for us when we’re trying to keep you updated every hour of the day with what’s going on in the automotive world. Well, we’re finally up and running again and filling you on everything you’ve missed. Moving forward – it’s time for our Miscellaneous Thoughts post for today.

Is Michael Schumacher the Stig: According to an audience member that attended the filming of Top Gear season 13, Michael Schumacher is the Stig: “I was at the top gear recording earlier on today for the first episode of the new series, and the Stig was revealed to be… Michael Schumacher!! this was very unexpected, but totally believable in the end. His full unmasking will be shown on BBC 1 on saturday at 9pm in the UK! attached are a few shots of his FXX which he was putting around the track. The rest of the episode is a interview with schumacher, a hot lap in the lliana and a race between a steam engine, a bike and a 1940’s jaguar.” – Jalopnik

Homer Simpson’s voice coming to TomTom navigations: TomTom has announced that Home Simpson will now help you navigate to your favorite point of interest in North America or Europe. TomTom joined forces with Locutio Voice Technologies and Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising to bring the original voice of Homer Simpson to all TomTom navigations. TomTom users can go to www.tomtom.com/simpsons and download the voice for $12.95.

GM gets okay to cancel leases on corporate jets: The U.S. Bankruptcy Court has granted a motion by General Motors to reject leases on seven corporate jets. – CNNMoney

- By: Omar Rana

Ahmed Almuhairi of United Arab Emirates manage to capture the Top Gear crew, including The Stig, on location with four high-performance supercars.

While Almuhairi said that police created a 1.86 mile blockade, he managed to capture a 38 second video in which you will see a Bugatti Veyron, Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR 722, Lamborghini SV LP670-4 and the old McLaren F1.

Of course, this means a very exciting episode in the works which we’re anxiously looking forward to.

- By: Kap Shah

Source: YouTube (via WCF)

Google Street View has picked up many things since it’s launch in May 2007. Adding to its archives today, the Google Street View cameras have spotted The Stig hanging out at a Top Gear office in Hammersmith, London. Some say he likes hanging out near the window, some say that he never uses Google Maps – all we know is he is none other than The Stig.

- By: The Daily Auto Editor

Source: Google Maps UK (via Top Gear)

As if all the controversy and speculation surrounding the true identity of Top Gear’s “The Stig” wasn’t confusing enough, a video popped up on YouTube yesterday showing the Black Stig, the original mystery driver, emerging from the ocean.

The video has raised a lot of speculation that BBC is bringing back the character after the identity of the Stig was revealed over and over again last month. The original Black Stig, was the brainchild of host Jeremy Clarkson and joined Top Gear in 2002. The character was then “killed off” after he was identified as British race car drive perry McCarthy.

A press release was released following the video stating: “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.”

Click through to see the video for yourself.

Over the past couple of days, it has been reported that Top Gear’s mystery driver, The Stig, is none other than Ben Collins, Graham Hill (who passed away in 1975) and the 44th President of the United States Barack Obama himself.

Continuing the massive confusion and speculation, the Daily Mail now claims that The Stig is actually played by a total of eight different drivers. The list includes 27-year old F1 driver Heikki Kovalainen, former GT world championship racing driver Chris Goodwin and Julian Bailey, a 47-year old former Tyrell and Lotus F1 driver from London.

Other ‘Stigs’ include Terry Grant from Hertfordshire, Russ Swift and Dan Lang – a Swedish snowmobile racing champion.

Daily Mail says that it received this information from the eighth Stig, who they identified only as Will. He was the main that appeared at the National Television Awards last year.

Source: Telegraph

Seems like the Top Gear blog is obsessed with getting traffic from all the car blogs out there and is milking this “unveiling The Stig” story for all it’s worth. Yesterday, Top Gear revealed the The Stig, the shows secret white-helmet driver, was none other than the deceased Graham Hill.

Today the blog reported The Stig is in fact the chairman of crisis-hit Royal Bank of Scotland, Tom McKillop. Following that the site said that The Stig is actually our 44-th President, Barack Hussein Obama.

The site editors quoted President Obama saying: “I didn’t expect to win, it was just something to do until the Fall TV season. I expect being President of the United States of America is pretty full on, but I’d hate to miss the next series because we’ll probably be putting that new Ferrari round the track.”

Well, here is just one more reason to love and respect our new President.

Source: Top Gear

Two days after British media reported that Ben Collins, a 33-year old former Formula Three, Le Mans, GT and NASCAR racer from Bristol, has revealed himself as The Stig – Top Gear has come out with their official word. According to a post on Top Gear’s blog, The Stig is none other than Graham Hill.

Who is Graham Hill you ask? Norman Graham Hill was a British racing driver and two-time Formula One World Champion and the only driver to win the Triple Crown of Motorsport (an unofficial motorsport achievement that includes winning the Indianapolis 500, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the Formula One World Championship.) The only problem is that Graham Hill died in 1975.

The Top Gear blog reads: In an alleged plot believed to have cost the license payer millions of pounds, BBC bosses apparently helped Graham Hill fake his own death in a plane crash.

According to Mole sources, the BBC knew as far back as 1974 that one day they’d hire Jeremy Clarkson to front their motoring show which didn’t exist yet, and that Jeremy would probably go to a school where they called new boys “Stigs”, and that in 2002 he’d probably invent an anonymous racing driver and probably give him that same name.

So they approached Graham Hill, whose professional driving career was over at that point, and asked him to crash a plane and then hide in a bush until he got the call from the Top Gear team 20 odd years later,” said a BBC insider.

He added: “The BBC does make a mess of some things but they’re pretty good at forward planning.”

BBC is one amazing network. The identity of The Stig was supposedly revealed after some moustache wax was found in a Mercedes-Benz SLR the Stig had been driving.

Source: Top Gear

It was reported last week that The Stig, the famous secret Top Gear driver, was a married man in his 30s who lives in a £300,000 house ($434,656 USD) and drives a £15,000 car ($21,732). After many months and years of speculation, the true identity of The Stig has been revealed today as 33-year old former Formula Three, Le Mans, GT and NASCAR racer from Bristol – Ben Collins. He supposedly revealed his identity to two Bristol gallery owners who he had asked to help him produce a limited-edition print of The Stig in action.

“I was absolutely amazed when he said he was The Stig, it was quite a big thing in a weird way,” said gallery owner Simon Whitehead.

Jason Goody, a Bristol builder, also reported last week that he saw The Stig’s suit and gloves on display at Collins house during some work he was doing at his house last week.

Perry McCarthy, the original black Stig, was “killed off” after his true identity was revealed. A Top Gear spokesman said: “We never comment on speculation as to who or what The Stig is.”

We’re just wondering what color the next Stig will be.

Source: Telegraph