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 (front for the Renault and rear in the case of the Smart). The first one has a Renault-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 101hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 3-cylinder, 6-valves 100hp engine designed by Smart.

Unfortunatelly, neither of the two vehicles was submitted to the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) testing. This makes it virtually impossible for me to pick one over the other and I'm generally against buying such cars as the safety should really always come first. 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, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the French car offers a potentially life-saving difference of 33% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Renault with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Smart badge with 4.3 out of 5. The same official information place Wind as average reliability-wise, and Roadster is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the French car rank it on average as 4.7, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Smart is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.7 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 190 kilometers per hour, exactly the same as the other car does. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the German car, averaging around 5.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (53 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 19% difference compared to the French car.

Renault 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 French car offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. From there things take a different direction, with Smart offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say Smart. Nevertheless, let's not forget that people have different preferences and needs, so what really counts is your personal feel. I'm only here to help. 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.