The invention relates to the optical-mechanical-electrical technical field, and particularly relates to a quick detection device and method for the photometric characteristics of a motor vehicle lamp. The device comprises a darkroom and two industrial CCD (Charge Coupled Device) cameras, wherein the darkroom is arranged opposite to a lamp fixing seat, the horizontal center axes of the darkroom and the lamp fixing seat are on the optical axis of the lamp, and an imaging screen is installed in the darkroom via a screen moving mechanism; the two industrial CCD cameras are connected to the upper and lower parts of the darkroom; and the industrial CCD cameras, a driving motor of the screen moving mechanism and a driving motor of an electric turntable are electrically connected with an industrial control computer. The detection method comprises equipment preparation, lamp installation, image acquisition, image processing, sample calibration and database establishment, and lamp photometric characteristic test. According to the device and the method, images are shot by a CCD planar array device, the relation between the illumination of the lamp and the gray value of the shot images is acquired, a database is established by using data obtained by multiple experiments of the lamp calibrated according to the illumination, and then the digital quantity of each pixel is inversed to the illumination of each point by spatial sampling.