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This page: No toolkit was complete without a Plug-O-Meter neatly tucked away inside.

The Plugometer.

Not all motoring gadgets were designed to be fitted to a car, some, such as the Champion Plugometer, were designed to help the budding driver/mechanic get the most from his motor-car. Although the information offered by the Plugometer was no more than you'd find in any workshop manual or handbook, Champion must have decided that this sparkplug tool would be a handy little thing to offer the sixties' motorist, in return for a useful bit of advertising at the same time.

Produced from thin steel, and measuring 7" in height, this nifty little gadget offered the following features. At the top is a rotary wheel, on which you can select the mileage that your current set of plugs has done. Roll past 10,000 miles and the writing in the little window turns to an urgent message, backed in red, saying 'RENEW'.

Below this is a series of apertures, through which Mr Keen Motorist could pop the end of this sparking plug, to best match the colour of his plug to those shown in the illustrations. The conditions ranged from 'Normal' (Insulator light brown, Check gap - reinstall), through 'Worn' (Electrode deterioration, Weak sparking, Fit new plugs), 'Oily' (Excessive oil, Check cause, Use hotter type plug if necessary), 'Burned' (Excessive heat. Check causes, Use colder type plug if necessary), to 'Petrol Fouled' (Sooty deposits, Check mixture, Use hotter type plug if necessary).

If the rotary reminder at the top of the Plugometer wasn't enough, another warning at the bottom advises you to 'CHANGE PLUGS AT 10,000 MILES'.

On the reverse, is a recommendation to choose Champion spark plugs:

"A New Set of Champions - Around 10,000 Miles gives:- Peak Performance (More Power), Extra Economy (Reduced Petrol Bills), and Sure-Fire Starting (Saves battery wear & tear)."

Folding out from the base of the Plugometer, are four small gauges - designed to measure plug and points gaps. So, a handy little tool, if a little bulky when compared to the usual set of feeler gauges that most motorists would have had in their car's toolkit. In the 50s and 60s there were many manufacturers of sparkplug whose names have disappeared from the parts dealers' shelves - few now remember names such as KLG or Lodge for example. The Champion name is still associated with the business of sparking plugs of course, albeit now part of Federal-Mogul in the USA. A leaflet listing the plugs available to owners of commercial vehicles in the 1940s, can be found on this page, within the motoring collectables section.

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