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 Alfa Romeo and 4 x 4 in the case of the Honda). The first one has a Alfa Romeo-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 188hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 295hp engine designed by Honda.

The fact that the Honda got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. 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, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Japanese car offers a considerable difference of 27% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears 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. The same official information place 166 as average reliability-wise, and Legend is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Italian car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Honda is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, 25km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 11.9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (24 mpg), in combined cycle.

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 my opinion, everything taken into account, the Japanese car beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. It all continues in the same direction, with Honda being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. 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™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.