Well, these are two pretty similar cars we have here! It's only details that could potentially make the difference. Considering they both belong to the small family car segment and utilize the same 3-door hatchback body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Alfa Romeo-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 250hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 200hp engine designed by Honda.

The first thing to look into here would be the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests performed on the two cars. Good thing is that both vehicles got tested, with the Honda being a slightly better choice apparently. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Italian car offers a considerable difference of 14% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Honda presents an order of magnitude better choice, when all the models are taken into account. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Alfa Romeo with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Honda badge with 4.7 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 147 as average reliability-wise, and Civic is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the Italian car rank it on average as 5.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Alfa Romeo is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.5 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 246 kilometers per hour, 11km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Japanese car, averaging around 8.9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (32 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 36% difference compared to the Italian car!

Honda is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. The most important thing when deciding between any two vehicles should always be safety, both passive and active. In this case though, it seems that both cars show similar levels of passenger protection all together, so that won't break a tie. But one thing that actually could is the performance, with Alfa Romeo offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Honda. In any case that's my personal view, built upon all the data available to me. What should decide here though is the way you feel about the two vehicles, and I hope you'll find my guidelines useful in the process. Also, you could use the oportunity to find out which car, everything taken into account, would be the perfect choice for you in the eyes of the virtual adviser™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.