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 (4 x 4 for the Audi and rear in the case of the BMW). The first one has a Audi-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 20-valves 180hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 115hp engine designed by BMW.

The fact that the Audi 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. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. 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. Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, Audi TT offers a considerable difference of 26% 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, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Audi, as well as BMW, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed TT as average reliability-wise, and Z3 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Audi TT rank it on average as 4.8, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Audi is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 220 kilometers per hour, 26km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be BMW Z3, averaging around 7.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (36 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 22% difference compared to Audi TT.

Audi 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, Audi TT beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. It all continues in the same direction, with Audi 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 Audi. 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.