David Champion’s job doesn’t end when he leaves the Consumer Reports magazine automotive test track in East Haddam, Conn.
The aptly named Champion, who supervises safety and other auto testing for what many consider the automotive shopping bible, has a sharp eye–and tongue–for drivers who are lax about using their seat belts.
“I have followed parents who failed to buckle up their children, and I’ve spoken to them,” Champion admits. “But I usually get the indignant look. I asked one lady whether she loved her kids. She said yes. I said: `Then put them in a seat belt.’ She told me I was No. 1 with a hand gesture. But I don’t care. I have to speak up.”
Speaking up is what the British-born Champion, 43, a former Nissan Motor Corp. engineer, says his job is all about.
As director of the auto test department for Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports, Champion oversees the evaluation, with a big emphasis on safety and reliability and often only a passing nod at style, of about 40 cars and trucks a year.
While Champion may be a hero of sorts to the monthly magazine’s 4.5 million subscribers, his competitors in the automotive enthusiast press often react to him like the woman did with the unbuckled child.
“Consumer Reports is the cold, dead hand of consumerism,” says Jean Jennings, deputy editor of Automobile magazine, one of the so-called buff books. “That magazine is for people who buy Honda Accords and Ford Tauruses. They are not enthusiasts. Consumer Reports would never look at a car and evaluate it as a dream machine or ask `How much fun is it?’ “
But that suits Champion and his staff of 16 just fine.
“The buff books have their advertisers they have to keep happy,” he said. “Without the advertising they accept, they wouldn’t be in business. We have no advertising–period. It means we’re not indebted to anybody. The people who pay for the magazine are the people who want a clear, concise, accurate description of the car that’s not biased by who is paying their paycheck.”
Consumer Reports approaches the testing of cars differently than much of the automotive press and has since the first article on cars (used cars actually) appeared in the July 1936 issue of the magazine. Then, the magazine’s earliest auto engineers used the highways of Massachusetts and Connecticut as their test tracks. And Lawrence Crooks, one of Champion’s predecessors and the first auto tester here, borrowed his friends’ new-model cars as test vehicles.
Today, the facility, and the approach to testing, is much more sophisticated. Champion and staff don’t regularly attend manufacturer-sponsored press previews, for example, or test the vehicles on manufacturers’ tracks. Instead, staff members anonymously buy vehicles from dealers in the Northeast, haggling over the sticker prices and spending about $250,000 a year on new products. They don’t review cars that cost more than $65,000.
“We don’t want a ringer for a car–one the manufacturer may have adjusted or tweaked to perform better,” Champion said.
The vehicles are “broken in” on local roads and testing begins when the vehicles have about 2,000 miles on them. A typical test lasts about six months or 10,000 miles, and the vehicles are tested by category (a recent test looked at family sedans with V-6 engines) in groups of four. While Champion refuses to discuss exactly how vehicles are rated, he says “safety is a huge issue.”
“A lot of our points come from brake testing and emergency handling,” he said.
Also taken into account is crash-test data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and the evaluators try to predict from that information how safe the vehicle will be in a crash.
Consumers Union does not do crash tests, but they do “bumper bashing,” driving a piston into three spots on the front and rear bumpers of every car they test at 2 1/2 and 5 m.p.h. to mimic things like parking-lot fender benders. After the testing, the cars are sold to Consumers Union employees.
In addition, Consumer Reports surveys subscribers yearly to get real-world information on vehicles, garnering about 600,000 responses on cars and trucks.
“It’s a great way of telling how a car holds up in real life,” said Champion.
The results of the surveys and the testing are published in various Consumers Union publications, the most well-known being the magazine, but also in the annual “New Car Yearbook,” “Cars CD-ROM” and the annual “Buying Guide.”
Champion has been in this job only for the last year, but he has been around automotive test tracks since childhood. And, while he can rhapsodize about the benefits of side air bags and anti-lock brakes, Champion is still a bit of a car nut, especially when it comes to Jaguars. His fleet includes a 1993 Range Rover that his wife, Starr, chauffeurs their two children around in, plus a 1975 Jaguar XJ6 coupe and a 1951 Jaguar XK120.
Champion’s enthusiasm for testing vehicles started with his father, Ronald, who worked for a truck manufacturer in England and then as a tire engineer with Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. He often took his son with him to test facilities. Champion recalls sitting on the edge of the Crowthorne Test Track in England at about age 10, watching cars whiz by and thinking, “this is something I’d like to do.”
Champion went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and metal and material science. He began his career in his homeland as a development engineer with Lucas Electrical Ltd., a maker of fuel-injection systems, and came to the U.S., where he supervised the startup of Land Rover of North America’s test facility in Phoenix. Before joining Consumers Union, he was a senior engineer at Nissan and was responsible for reporting problems to Nissan design.
“You see something wrong on a car, and you want to fix it,” he said. “In this job, though, I’m more writing about what we like and don’t like.”
In a typical day, Champion does some of the test driving or goes over technical reports with the other four engineers on staff until they reach a consensus about an accurate description of each vehicle. He says they take a particular interest in safety testing–and that a vehicle’s brakes can be a huge safety bonus. And while most vehicles have pretty good brakes, the test results can be dramatic, as in the 1997 60- to zero-m.p.h. tests here under wet braking.
“The Cadillac Catera stopped in 142 feet,” Champion said. “That was our best. The Jeep Grand Cherokee stopped in 181 feet. That was close to the worst. So did the Ford Escort (at) 181 feet. That’s a difference of 40 feet or almost two car lengths. That can be a critical factor in an accident. But you also have to take into account that a Catera is a lot more expensive than an Escort.”
For 1998, Consumer Reports recommends the redesigned Honda Accord over the Oldsmobile Intrigue, though Champion notes the Intrigue is “probably the best car we’ve tested from GM in a long time.”
“The Intrigue feels like a Toyota or a Honda, and it drives nicely,” he said. “The initial quality looked pretty good. But we’ll have to see how it holds up in real life. The Intrigue is too new and not replacing a model that already existed. So we can’t say how good the Intrigue is likely to be.”
And despite the rigorous testing and thoughtful writing of auto reviews, Champion realizes that some buyers may ignore the advice his magazine offers.
“In the May issue we talk about the (1998 Dodge) Durango,” he said. “It’s not good. It’s very thirsty. It’s got a fairly hard, choppy ride. Some of the seat comfort was not good either, but it will sell well. Why? It looks good, and it has three rows of seats.”
