Biased and partial car testers?
06/15/2016
Car testers are often accused of wearing overly nationally (or commercially) colored glasses when it comes to comparing different vehicles in a neutral way. Rumor has it that German cars usually win the comparisons in Germany and French cars usually win in France.
However, we found a really convincing counter-example when we were researching for an article.
At the end of 1974, the magazine Auto Motor und Sport( in issues 26/1974and 1/1975) compared six cars in the lower middle class, namely the new top dog VW Golf LS (with 70 hp) with its competitors Opel Kadett 1200 S, Fiat 128 Special, Simca 1100 Special, Citroën GS 1220 Club and Alfa Romeo Alfasud.
One might have expected Golf ahead of Kadett, but things turned out completely differently. Surprisingly, the Citroën GS won ahead of the Alfasud, followed by the VW Golf in third place, followed by the Kadett, Simca and Fiat 128. If the classification had been price-neutralized, i.e. the number of points had been adjusted according to the purchase price, the winner would have been the Alfasud ahead of the Citroën and Golf.
The fact that the Citroën emerged as the winner was due to its dominance in the test areas of ride comfort and driving safety, both of which it clearly won.
Oh yes, there was something else. We don't know whether this was a joke or an unintentional mistake by the AMS makers when they published the first part. At the time, the title page showed the final order, which should have been communicated to readers at the end of the second part (two weeks later). But presumably nobody would have thought this order possible at the beginning of the comparison test anyway ...
