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 city car segment and utilize the same 3-door hatchback 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 Rover-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 84hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 12-valves 75hp engine designed by Mitsubishi.

The fact that the Rover got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, isn't really an advantage, taken the poor 3-star rating it received. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the city car segment, which is generally not a very good thing safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the British car offers a marginal difference of 8% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Rover does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Rover with an average rating of 4.5, and models under the Mitsubishi badge with 4.6 out of 5. The same official information place 25 as average reliability-wise, and Colt is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the British car rank it on average as 4.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Mitsubishi is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.4 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 170 kilometers per hour, 5km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 6.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (42 mpg), in combined cycle.

Rover 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 British car offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. From there things take a different direction, with Mitsubishi offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... It's not difficult to say then that if I'd need to make a choice, it would definitely be the Rover. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.