Top Gear’s The Stig to drive in BBC gameshow fronted by Dermot O’Leary

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/aug/11/top-gear-stig-bbc-dermot-oleary-the-getaway-car

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The BBC is to launch a new primetime motoring show fronted by Dermot O’Leary and featuring Top Gear’s Stig, weeks after Jeremy Clarkson unveiled a deal to return to TV with Amazon.

The BBC1 show, which will air next year on Saturday nights, marks a primetime comeback for O’Leary who was dropped from fronting ITV’s The X Factor last year after eight series.

The new show, The Getaway Car, will feature couples competing in an series of driving challenges that will “test the limits of their relationships” in a bid to win a cash prize.

Related: Top Gear's Clarkson, Hammond and May sign Amazon deal

The 12-episode show will also see the best competitors race Top Gear’s iconic, white-suited, anonymous racing driver The Stig.

“Nobody said winning the money would be easy,” said the BBC in promotional material for the show.

“This is a show that’s really about relationships,” said O’Leary. “We all think we are great drivers, but what tickled me most is seeing how people, who obviously love each other very much, speak to each other when they are behind the wheel of a car. It brings out the worst in all of us ... but in a fun way.

The BBC has announced the new motoring show less than two weeks after former Top Gear hosts Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond revealed a three-series deal to make a show with Amazon reportedly worth as much as £160m.

The BBC is hoping that The Getaway Car might prove to have the right ingredients to prove a global hit, Top Gear is the corporation’s biggest global money spinner worth £50m in revenue annually.

“We’re hugely excited about this show and its potential to follow other successful British TV formats onto an international stage,” said Tracy Forsyth, genre director of factual entertainment and entertainment content at BBC Worldwide. “With an iconic character from one of our biggest global brands already on board, we know audiences everywhere will be curious to see what’s under the bonnet of The Getaway Car.”

BBC Worldwide is the global distributor of The Getaway Car, and holds the format rights.

The BBC said that the show was not derivative or a copycat of other motoring formats.

“The Getaway Car is an ambitious and exciting Saturday night entertainment show that enhances the BBC’s commitment to producing some of the most original entertainment formats around,” said Katie Taylor, controller of entertainment and events at BBC Production.