Never a dull moment auto testing

Mark La Ciura.

A test car with the funky looking designs in the Tehachapi Walmart parking lot.. When the testing is done with these cars, they are crushed so they are never sold to the general public. Photo taken in 2021.

This may not be widely known, but the Tehachapi mountain grades and eastern Kern County roads are used by every car maker to test cars, and check trucks for safety, performance, emissions, reliability and durability. These tests are mandated by the federal government to take place before cars can be sold here in the United States.

The grade pulling up from General Beale Road at the base of the Tehachapi Mountains is known as the "Transmission Killer." Most car manufacturers use this grade to test the limits of the cars drive train by over loading the car with sandbags, over loaded trailers and using water to simulate the weight of passengers. These are called "Water Babies."

I learned this during my time as a contractor durability driver at two sites. I worked at both the Honda Proving Center of California and the Hyundai Motor Group California Proving Grounds, which is near Highway 58 in California City.

It was an interesting job, to say the least. Never a dull moment, especially when I first started testing with Honda.

My first eye opening experience was driving a very covered up car. I wasn't even sure what kind of car I was driving. Wires all covered the front and back seats. I am sure you have seen these cars with funky black tape designs on Highway 58, well those cars are covered to keep the new styling designs a secret to other car makers.

I can't disclose the routes we drove, but I was in a pack of 13 test cars doing a mountain driving mode. It's kind of a caravan where you don't lose sight of the car ahead, but also leave lots of following distance. We had to do the posted speed when safe to do so and do full stops at stop signs. These cars have a computer onboard, and GPS would tell on you if you were speeding or doing anything wrong. You could easily lose your job speeding. Lots of folks did not deal with these safe driving rules at all.

Somehow I ended with a Los Angeles County Sheriff on my tail with a Cal Trans road crew doing work on the side of the road. I moved over and slowed down to give the crew more safety. My front driver's side tire just touched the double yellow line and the Sheriff lit me up, pulling me over while driving my test vehicle. I was sure I was going to lose my job.

I did as we all are told and kept my hands on the wheel. To my disbelief, the officer had his 9 mm Glock gun pulled. The gun was aimed at me and his finger was "not" on the trigger. He said, "you are driving a stolen car." I was blown away, and told him this is a Honda test car out of Cantil, California where the proving grounds are. I am a test driver.

I got my hands zipped tied and was told to shut up. The officer said we will figure this out.

Overhearing what the officers were saying, the car was stolen out of Elmira, New York. The car had manufacture dealer plates from Michigan where Honda has another test track.

I was two weeks on the job and now I was in the hot sun for almost two hours. My supervisor stopped to help me and he got his hands zipped tied, as well.

The officers were thinking this was a Honda stolen car ring, which was happening a lot back then. In the end, this was a registration problem caused by Honda. The vehicle identification number matched a stolen Motorcycle from Elmia, New York.

One of the best things I retained from this experience is to never overreact. The officers were just doing their jobs with the information they had.

After lots of time talking with the officer's supervisor and calls to the Honda proving grounds, we were cleared to go home. There was no mention of me touching the double yellow line.

Like I said, never a dull moment testing cars, and I did not lose my job.