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 210hp 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. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. 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 marginal difference of 9% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning 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 4.8, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

SAAB is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.4 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 235 kilometers per hour, 5km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Swedish car, averaging around 7.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (36 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 26% 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 slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with SAAB offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.