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 5-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 Peugeot-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 3-cylinder, 12-valves 68hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 75hp engine designed by Mazda.

A starting point here would be to take a look at the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests which were performed on both of the cars, with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. 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 French car offers a marginal difference of 3% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Mazda 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 Citroen with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the Mazda badge with 4.4 out of 5. The same official information place C3 as average reliability-wise, and 2 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the French car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Mazda is way more agile, reaching 100km/h in 4.2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 171 kilometers per hour, 7km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 4.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (60 mpg), in combined cycle.

Mazda 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 French car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Mazda outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the Mazda. 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.