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 5-door wagon body style within the same 'Small family car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the Subaru and front in the case of the Volkswagen). The first one has a Subaru-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 225hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 20-valves 150hp engine designed by Audi.

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. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the small family car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Japanese car offers a marginal difference of 7% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Subaru, as well as Volkswagen, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. The same official information place Impreza as average reliability-wise, and Bora is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the Japanese car rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.5 out of 5.

Subaru is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 230 kilometers per hour, 14km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the German car, averaging around 8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (35 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 15% difference compared to the Japanese car.

Subaru 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 Japanese car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Subaru outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the Subaru. 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. Also, you could use the oportunity to find out which car, everything taken into account, would be the perfect choice for you in the eyes of the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.