I found an interesting editorial in my October 2001 issue of Motor Trend, it outlines how they as well as most other reputable magazines test vehicles. Pretty neat stuff!

It is a scanned image, and quite large, so I provided a link to where you can download it.

Motor Trend: "The Truth About Testing" from October 2001 (http://www.stevebilyk.com/images/testing.jpg)

sweet

That's pretty interesting. I still don't put much stock in the magazines 0-60 and 1/4 times though. :)