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 coupe body style within the same 'Sports car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (rear for the Porsche and 4 x 4 in the case of the Nissan). The first one has a Porsche-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 400hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 485hp engine designed by Nissan.

Unfortunatelly, neither of the two vehicles was submitted to the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) testing. This makes it virtually impossible for me to pick one over the other and I'm generally against buying such cars as the safety should really always come first. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the sports car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Japanese car offers a considerable difference of 23% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Nissan is significantly less fault-prone, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Porsche with an average rating of 3.7, and models under the Nissan badge with 4.3 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 911 as average reliability-wise, and GT-R is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Nissan is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 310 kilometers per hour, 6km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 9.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (30 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 31% difference compared to the Japanese car!

Nissan 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 Japanese car offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with Nissan being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... It's really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say Porsche. 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.