Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by petrol engines and utilizing the 4-door sedan body style within the same 'Large family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the SAAB and rear in the case of the Lexus). The first one has a Opel-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 150hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 207hp engine designed by Toyota.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Japanese car offers a considerable difference of 13% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Lexus does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of SAAB with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the Lexus badge with 4.9 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 9-3 as average reliability-wise, and IS is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the Swedish car rank it on average as 5.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Lexus is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.4 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 230 kilometers per hour, 20km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Swedish car, averaging around 7.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (38 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 31% difference compared to the Japanese car!

Lexus appears just a bit more reliable, although the difference is truly marginal. The most important thing when deciding between any two vehicles should always be safety, both passive and active. In my opinion, everything taken into account, the Japanese car offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with Lexus being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say SAAB. 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. In case you have two minutes to spare I invite you to define your needs, desires and budget and see which car would be chosen by the virtual adviser™, among thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.