Oh, *that* Stig!

As I was going over my referrer logs, I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I had so many hits from the UK.  Sure, there's a great children's book called "Stig of the Dump" that's popular in Britain, but that didn't seem sufficient to generate such traffic. 

The other night, while checking out a link to some supercar videos on Google, I came across the answer. 

There's a well-liked car show on the BBC called Top Gear.  I've never seen it in the US, but you can find dozens of episodes here.  In the show, the hosts review a few car models, discuss them with a studio audience, and occasionally perform some hilarious races of car vs. ferry, car vs. plane, etc.  At the end of the show, a "mystery driver" named "The Stig" drives the featured car around a track to see how it fares against the other cars they've tested.  His face is never shown, and he never speaks.

If you're interested in the identity of The Stig on the show (there have been at least two, maybe more), then check out the entry in the Wikipedia.

"Stig" literally means "path" in Swedish, which may come from the Old Norse STÍGANDR, meaning "Wanderer."  Apparently, it's an old man's name in Sweden, and fairly uncool.  But here in the states, it's pleasantly rare. 

Comments

[Dave]

That, and the fact that one of the Top Gear presenters is one Richard Hammond. Presumably, now you're getting twice as many hits again because you've mentioned the show by name. Quick, do something notorious while everybody's watching! :-)

[Butterflying]

Stig's name has nothing to do with Swedish. It's what the main presenter Jeremy Clarkson and the producer used to call new boys at their school when they were boys.

[punk]

I also came here from adsense spot looking for Stig, racer of Top Gear. The text on ad was "Stig Hammond. Looking for Stig? Catch up in person at his website" Richard Hammond is another host of TG:)