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Former Stig Ben Collins to Drive a 2016 Shelby GT350R Mustang at the Goodwood FoS

After Perry McCarthy had let it slip that he’s the Black Stig, Top Gear fired him and employed Ben Collins. The first White Stig drove a helluva lot of cars around the Top Gear test track from 2003 to 2010, when Collins was ousted from the hit motoring show. Fret not though - the former Top Gear Stig in white racing overalls still has a busy schedule.
Ben Collins as The Stig 1 photo
Photo: screenshot from Youtube
In the provisional list of drivers and riders for the 2015 edition of the Goodwood Festival of Speed, we saw that Ben Collins is the man that will drive the 2016 Shelby GT350R Mustang, the most extreme road-legal Mustang from Ford Performance. This feat holds some curiosity to it. Wait, make that two curioisities.

First of all, has the Blue Oval announced that it’s selling the 2016 Shelby GT350 and GT350R Mustang in Europe? There’s nothing official on this at the time of writing. Furthermore, sources close to Ford claim that Europe won’t get the Shelby-ified muscle car. The I4 EcoBoost and V8 GT will have to suffice.

Secondly, why Ben Collins? The only proper racing result he can be proud of is a VSR V8 Trophy champion title from 2003. And he starred in a CC Mason music video, driving a Chevrolet Camaro V6. To put the former Stig’s stardom into contrast, the Blue Oval employed Ken Block to hoon his 950 horsepower Hoonicorn Mustang and the 2016 Ford Focus RS on Lord March’s glorious hill climb.

We’re not trying to nitpick here because we know that Collins can squeeze every ounce of American V8 muscle from the GT350R’s flat-plane crank tower-of-power better than many other racing drivers, Formula 1 stars included. In Ben Collins-related news, production has started for an upcoming television show in which the former Stig will go through the ups and downs of what it means to be a stunt driver.

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 Download: Goodwood Festival of Speed 2015 drivers lineup (PDF)

About the author: Mircea Panait
Mircea Panait profile photo

After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well.
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