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 hatchback 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 rear in the case of the BMW). The first one has a Subaru-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 230hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 170hp engine designed by BMW.

The first thing to look into here would be the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests performed on the two cars. Good thing is that both vehicles got tested, with the BMW being a slightly better choice apparently. 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, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Japanese car offers a marginal difference of 9% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Subaru does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Subaru, as well as BMW, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. The same official information place Impreza as average reliability-wise, and 1 Series is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Japanese car rank it on average as 4.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.3 out of 5.

Subaru is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.3 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 209 kilometers per hour, 15km/h less than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 6.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (44 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 63% 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 German car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Subaru being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but BMW. 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. 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.