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 'Luxury car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Rover and rear in the case of the Jaguar). The first one has a Rover-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 201hp engine designed by Jaguar.

The fact that the Rover got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, offers a slight advantage, as the 4-star rating is better than none. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the luxury car segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, S-Type offers a considerable difference of 14% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Rover as a brand displays somewhat better results, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Rover with an average rating of 4.5, and models under the Jaguar badge with 4.1 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed 75 as average reliability-wise, and S-Type is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as Rover 75 rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 2.0 out of 5.

Jaguar is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 228 kilometers per hour, 18km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be Rover 75, averaging around 8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (35 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 19% difference compared to S-Type.

Rover 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 my opinion, everything taken into account, Rover 75 offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. From there things take a different direction, with Jaguar being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. 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 Rover. 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.