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 Mitsubishi-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 3-cylinder, 12-valves 71hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 70hp engine designed by Ford.

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 Mitsubishi being a slightly better choice apparently. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the city car segment, which is generally not a very good thing safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the American car offers a considerable difference of 11% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Ford does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Mitsubishi with an average rating of 4.6, and models under the Ford badge with 4.4 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Japanese car rank it on average as 3.7, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Mitsubishi is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.7 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 172 kilometers per hour, 13km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Japanese car, averaging around 4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (71 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 25% difference compared to the American car.

Mitsubishi 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 Mitsubishi 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 Mitsubishi. 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™, among thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.