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 (front for the Volvo and rear in the case of the Mercedes Benz). The first one has a Volvo-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 5-cylinder, 20-valves 170hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 231hp 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, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. Furthermore, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Swedish car offers a considerable difference of 17% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Volvo does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. 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 Mercedes Benz badge with 4.4 out of 5. The same official information place C70 as average reliability-wise, and SLK is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Swedish car rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.8 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, 30km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 9.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (31 mpg), in combined cycle.

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 Swedish car offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. From there things take a different 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... I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the Volvo. 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.