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 (rear for the Smart and front in the case of the Opel). The first one has a Smart-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 3-cylinder, 6-valves 100hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 90hp engine designed by Opel.

The fact that the Opel got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, offers a slight advantage, as the 4-star rating is better than none. 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, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, Tigra offers a potentially life-saving difference of 36% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Smart does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Smart with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Opel badge with 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Roadster as average reliability-wise, and Tigra is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Roadster rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.1 out of 5.

Smart is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.6 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 190 kilometers per hour, 10km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be Roadster, averaging around 5.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (53 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 15% difference compared to Tigra.

Opel 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, Tigra beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. From there things take a different direction, with Smart outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say Smart. 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.