Well, these are two pretty similar cars we have here! It's only details that could potentially make the difference. Considering they both belong to the luxury car segment and utilize the same 4-door sedan body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a SAAB-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 235hp engine designed by Hyundai.

The fact that the SAAB 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, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Korean car offers a considerable difference of 11% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Hyundai does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of SAAB with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the Hyundai badge with 4.5 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 the Swedish car rank it on average as 4.9, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Hyundai is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 237 kilometers per hour, 22km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Swedish car, averaging around 9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (31 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 13% difference compared to the Korean car.

SAAB 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 Swedish car beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. From there things take a different direction, with Hyundai 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 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. 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.