Overview

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 'City car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Lancia and rear in the case of the Smart). The first one has a FIAT-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 2-cylinder, 8-valves 80hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 3-cylinder, 12-valves 90hp engine designed by Nissan.

Safety

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 Smart displaying significantly better structural stability. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. 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?

Reliability

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Smart does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Lancia, as well as Smart, with the same average rating of 4.3 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the Italian car rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.6 out of 5.

Performance & Fuel economy

There's not enough data for me to elaborate on the subject, I'm affraid.

Verdict

Smart 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 beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. When it comes to performance, both vehicles provide similar experience, so I wouldn't point any of them out. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. It's not difficult to say then that if I'd need to make a choice, it would definitely be the 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. 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™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.