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 front in the case of the Alfa Romeo). The first one has a Porsche-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 228hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 220hp engine designed by Alfa Romeo.

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. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. 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 Italian car offers a marginal difference of 9% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Porsche with an average rating of 3.9, and models under the Alfa Romeo badge with 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Boxster as average reliability-wise, and GTV is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 2.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Porsche is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.4 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 253 kilometers per hour, 20km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 9.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (29 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 21% difference compared to the Italian car!

Alfa Romeo 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, the Italian car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Porsche outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. 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. Nevertheless, let's not forget that people have different preferences and needs, so what really counts is your personal feel. I'm only here to help. 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.