Softback, 352 pages, limited colour picture sections
ISBN: 978-0007331697 Publisher: Harper Collins
Amazon price: £4.61
This one was a surprise for it's strong writing style (SAS military thriller meets travelogue), major army training content and sweaty honesty. If you ever wanted to be BBC Top Gear's Stig, this will tell you why you didn't make it to replace Black Stig, aka Perry McCarthy, author of the funniest motor racing autobiography ever written: Flat out & Flat Broke.
Naturally all the TG stunts of the Collins period are extensively described. For me it's the offbeat stuff, like coaching a blind hero to beat four celebrity times around the Dunsfold track, that really grips - Respect.
Collins comes across as a predictably hard character, and does himself no favours with the account of the jet car crash that put Richard Hammond in hospital; BUT, if you are working for an original and successful TV programme, one that has a truly massive UK and overseas audience, priority one is the hardest of mindsets. Jeremy Clarkson and TG creative genius Andy Wilman take no prisoners and expect 200% from their associates.
Despite the obvious hype and self-promotion, I was glad I read this book. It taught me why nobody entertains a public so often totally outside the petrol head world so consistently and internationally as BBC Top Gear.
Top value as a paperback.
