Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by diesel 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 (front for the Volvo and rear in the case of the Mercedes Benz). 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 6-cylinder, 24-valves 224hp engine designed by Mercedes Benz.

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. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. 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, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the German car offers a marginal difference of 5% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Volvo does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Volvo with an average rating of 4.6, and models under the Mercedes Benz badge with 4.4 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed C70 as average reliability-wise, and CLK is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the Swedish car rank it on average as 4.2, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.5 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.4 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 242 kilometers per hour, 37km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Swedish car, averaging around 6.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (46 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 23% difference compared to the German 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 German car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Mercedes Benz being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say Volvo. Anyway, that's the most objective conclusion I could've came up with and it's based solely on the information found on this website. Aspects such as design, practicality, brand value and driving experience are there for you to measure them out. I suggest you spend two more minutes in order to find out which car, based on your needs and budget, would be picked by the virtual adviser™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.