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 sports car segment and utilize the same 2-door cabriolet body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific diesel engine choice they offer. The first one has a Peugeot-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 136hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 170hp engine designed by FIAT.

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. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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? On the other hand, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Italian car offers a marginal difference of 1% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Volvo as a brand displays somewhat better results, all the models observed together. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Volvo with an average rating of 4.6, and models under the Alfa Romeo badge with 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank C70 as average reliability-wise, and Brera 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 4.2, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.6 out of 5.

Alfa Romeo is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 218 kilometers per hour, 13km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Italian car, averaging around 5.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (52 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 13% difference compared to the Swedish car.

Volvo 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 Italian car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Alfa Romeo being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. 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 Alfa Romeo. 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 thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.