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 small family 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 FIAT-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 65hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 72hp engine designed by Lada.

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. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the small family 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, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Russian car offers a considerable difference of 18% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, when all the models are taken into account. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Zastava with an average rating of 3.4, and models under the Lada badge with 4.3 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Skala as average reliability-wise, and 110 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Serbian car rank it on average as 3.7, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Lada is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 167 kilometers per hour, 22km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 7.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (38 mpg), in combined cycle.

Lada 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 Russian car offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with Lada 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 Lada. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.