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 micro car segment and utilize the same 2-door cabriolet 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 FIAT-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 135hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 115hp engine designed by Tritec.

Both vehicles got tested by European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), 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 micro car segment, which is generally a misfortune safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that FIAT does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of FIAT with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Mini badge with 4.1 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed 500 as average reliability-wise, and Mini is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Italian car rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.5 out of 5.

FIAT is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.9 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 205 kilometers per hour, 12km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Italian car, averaging around 6.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (43 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 12% difference compared to the British car.

FIAT 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 this case though, it seems that both cars show similar levels of passenger protection all together, so that won't break a tie. But one thing that actually could is the performance, with FIAT being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but FIAT. 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.