Tiff Needell

Tiff Needell
Main PhotoPrimeHistoric Photograph of Tiff Needell as of the 2010s. Needell as he looked during his tenure on Fifth Gear. Tiff Needell in the 1980s, during his racing career.
Full Name	Timothy Needell
Nationality	Great Britain
Birthday	29th October
Sex	Male
Occupation	Presenter of Top Gear (1977 TV series) Presenter of Fifth Gear Presenter of Lovecars
On-screen debut	Top Gear: Series 17, Episode 1 (1987)
Final appearance	Lovecars OTR: Episode 6 (2020)

Timothy Needell was a British racing driver and later automotive journalist who helped to present the original incarnation of BBC's Top Gear from its 17th series in 1987 through to its cancellation at the end of its 45th series in 2001, before famously defecting to Channel 5 in order to present Fifth Gear. Following a seventeen year stint with the programme, Needell would be surprisingly axed by Discovery executives for undisclosed reasons, leading him to close his career under a new company, Lovecars, which produced the shortlived TV series Lovecars: On The Road.

Early life

Born in 1951 in Havant, Hampshire, Needell was the younger son of Diana and Anthony Fairey "Tony" Needell, a pre-war spectator and auto-tester at the famed Brooklands circuit who later became a significant figure in the world of powerboat racing and naval architecture. Growing up, Needell attended Ottershaw School before attaining an Honours Degree in Civil Engineering at City University, graduating in 1974. As a child, Needell was "dragged" to Goodwood by his father, where he witnessed star drivers of the era such as Mike Hawthorn and Stirling Moss. From there, the young Needell was hooked, and bought a Yamato Pax M4 in order to capture his heroes on film. He would compile together various scrapbooks of photographs captured at motor racing events, developing the films himself whilst at boarding school. Many of these photographs were later republished in the May 2011 issue of Motorsport Magazine.

"Tiff"

As he grew up with his older brother Michael (1948 - c.1985/6), Needell found himself unable to correctly pronounce his name, saying "Tiff" instead of "Timothy". From there, his nickname stuck throughout his entire life.

Career

Through his own admission, Needell considers his career as having started in 1977, the year he became a professional racing driver after having first sat in a racing car six years earlier as a result of winning a competition organised by Autocar. Despite success in many junior formulae throughout the 1970s to the extent that in 1976 he was considered the country's most promising young driver, in 1979 Needell would be denied his FISA application in order to race in Formula 1 that year for the Ensign team, losing out his drive to Frenchman Patrick Gaillard. He would re-apply the following year, and successfully get the drive after Clay Regazzoni suffered a career-ending injury at the 1980 United States Grand Prix West. Of two attempts, Needell would qualify just once, at the 1980 Belgian Grand Prix at Zolder, where he started 23rd, initially ahead of before trailing behind Brazilian F1 and Indycar legend Emerson Fittipaldi, before Needell's engine gave out during the thirteenth lap. Needell would never start another F1 race, being booted from the team in favour of Dutchman Jan Lammers after failing to qualify at Monaco.

Early Top Gear career

Following administrative changes made to the programme in 1986, Needell would be scouted by new Top Gear producer Ken Pollock, who felt he would be an excellent addition to the team due to being a more than competent driver who could talk about his experiences whilst driving. He would be given a role on Top Gear around the same time as future fellow colleague Jeremy Clarkson, but would beat the latter in terms of a television debut by appearing in the programme's seventeenth series premiere under the tenure of William Woollard, during which he was given the role of test driving a Van Diemen Formula First racing car at Brands Hatch as part of a film otherwise presented by Chris Goffey. From there, Needell would make frequent appearances for racing films or other segments which required advanced driving techniques, such as demonstrating overtaking in a Ford Escort XR3, as well as driving the famed 1903 Napier Gordon Bennett around a private course. He would gradually move towards general road testing as the late 1980s progressed, representing the 1970s for Top Gear's Car of the Decade special which kicked off the programme's twentieth series, behind the wheel of the finalist for that respective decade; the Alfa Romeo Alfasud. He would also test drive the Volkswagen Corrado in the episode which aired one week prior to Jeremy Clarkson's debut in 1988.

Selected filmography

^{Unabridged article: Filmography}

• Grand Prix: 1980 (1 episode - Belgian Grand Prix)
• Top Gear: 1987 - 2001 (236 episodes)
• Fifth Gear: 2002 - 2018 (173 episodes)
• Lovecars: On The Road: 2020 (6 episodes)

Trivia

• Despite his deceptively youthful appearance, Needell was already 50 years old upon Top Gear's initial cancellation in 2001.
• From 1987 until 2015, Needell maintained a record of longest continuous television career for a British automotive personality, overtaking Chris Goffey in 2011, by appearing in at least one automotive journalism themed programme per year.