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 2-door cabriolet body style within the same 'Sports car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (rear for the Mercedes Benz and front in the case of the Volkswagen). The first one has a Mercedes Benz-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 231hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 250hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

The fact that the Volkswagen 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. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the sports car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Eos offers a considerable difference of 18% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Volkswagen 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 Mercedes Benz with an average rating of 4.4, and models under the Volkswagen badge with 4.2 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as SLK rank it on average as 4.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.3 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, 3km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 9.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (31 mpg), in combined cycle.

Volkswagen 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, Eos beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. From there things take a different direction, with Mercedes Benz 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 Volkswagen. Anyway, that's the most objective conclusion I could've came up with and it's based solely on the information found on this website. Aspects such as design, practicality, brand value and driving experience are there for you to measure them out. 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.