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Dimensons & Outlines
Engine
6.2 M159 KE63 AMG
Performance (manual gearbox)
Performance (automatic gearbox)
Expenses
Virtual Adviser's™ opinion
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 cabriolet body style within the same 'Sports car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the Porsche and rear in the case of the Mercedes Benz). 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 8-cylinder, 32-valves 571hp engine designed by Mercedes Benz.
SafetyUnfortunatelly, 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. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. 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, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, SLS offers a marginal difference of 7% more metal.
ReliabilityI don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Mercedes Benz does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Porsche with an average rating of 3.7, and models under the Mercedes Benz badge with 4.4 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 911 as average reliability-wise, and SLS is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as 911 rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.
Performance & Fuel economyMercedes Benz is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.9 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 317 kilometers per hour, 21km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be 911, averaging around 10 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (28 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 32% difference compared to SLS!
Verdict
Mercedes Benz is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. 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, SLS offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Mercedes Benz offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the 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. Also, you could use the oportunity to find out which car, everything taken into account, would be the perfect choice for you in the eyes of the virtual adviser™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.