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 small family car segment and utilize the same 5-door hatchback 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 Rover-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 113hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 105hp engine designed by FIAT.

The fact that the FIAT got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, doesn't actually do much for it, as it's still a lousy 2-star coffin on wheels. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the small family 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, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the British car offers a considerable difference of 12% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Rover with an average rating of 4.5, and models under the FIAT badge with 4.3 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 45 as average reliability-wise, and Brava 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 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.3 out of 5.

Both of the cars accelerate exactly the same, so we couldn't put one above the other. Car No. 1 reaches top speed of 185 kilometers per hour, exactly the same as the other car does. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 5.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (52 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 significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. When it comes to performance, both vehicles provide similar experience, so I wouldn't point any of them out. the British car still consumps less fuel, which needs to be taken into consideration. All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but 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.