Tiff Needell
Is Tiff Needell the Stig? We've no idea, but here's what we can tell you about the top telly petrolhead.
Clarkson may have the bigger mouth, and Hammond the bigger haircut, but Tiff Needell trumps them both with his CV. After all, he used to be a professional racing driver, even competing in the gruelling 24 hour Le Mans.
It must be said that Tiff Needell's a bit of a clever clogs. Not only is he a seasoned motoring journalist and all-round king among petrolheads, but he also happens to be a structural design engineer. In fact, he was building houses for a living when he made the leap to motorsports in the 1970s.
He worked his way up to Formula 1, although - how can we put this delicately - he wasn't exactly the Lewis Hamilton of his day. But sod the lack of wins - Tiff proved himself a very versatile customer by switching from F1 to sports cars, coming an impressive third place in the stupidly difficult 24 Hour Le Mans.
But, it was in 1987 that Tiff became a proper household name when he started hosting Top Gear - this was back when TG was a serious, dad-pleasing car review series, with a conspicuous lack of 'car darts' and exploding caravans. Not that Tiff doesn't enjoy taking ridiculous risks for our viewing pleasure. He once plumbed the watery depths in a prototype car-cum-submarine on Fifth Gear - a stunt that involved signing a declaration to promise nobody would sue if he happened to drown.
Despite such potentially-lethal tomfoolery, Tiff remains a refreshingly sensible and serious motoring pundit - the man to turn to when you want a sober assessment of a car, rather than a crazy race between a BMW and a gun-toting clown on a pogo stick, or whatever the Top Gear boys have lined up next. The other good thing about Tiff is that his name is actually his nickname. Born Timothy Needell, the 'Tiff' comes from his brother, due to their endless boyhood bickering. We applaud his professional use of his nickname, and urge Hamster Hammond to do the same.
The only question remains - is Tiff Needell the Stig from Top Gear? They certainly share a number of traits, both having arms, legs and an unreasonably large amount go driving talent. Tiff's certainly a prime Stig suspect, and it certainly would be a sneaky way to return to his old Top Gear stomping ground. But the only way to find out for sure is to bribe a Top Gear executive, and frankly we're too cheap. So let the speculation continue.
