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 (rear for the Porsche and 4 x 4 in the case of the Audi). 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 430hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

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, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, Audi R8 offers a considerable difference of 12% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Audi does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Porsche with an average rating of 3.7, and models under the Audi badge with 4.2 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 911 rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Porsche is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 301 kilometers per hour, 1km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be 911, averaging around 9.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (29 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 48% difference compared to Audi R8!

Audi 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, Audi R8 offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. From there things take a different direction, with Porsche offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. 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 Porsche. Anyway, that's the most objective conclusion I could've came up with and it's based solely on the information found on this website. Aspects such as design, practicality, brand value and driving experience are there for you to measure them out. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.