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 sports car segment and utilize the same 2-door cabriolet body style and the rear wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Porsche-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 310hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 272hp engine designed by Mercedes Benz.

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 it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Boxster offers a marginal difference of 5% more metal.

I 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. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Porsche with an average rating of 3.9, and models under the Mercedes Benz badge with 4.3 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as Boxster rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 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 274 kilometers per hour, 24km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be Boxster, averaging around 9.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (29 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 8% difference compared to SLK.

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, Boxster offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same 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. 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™, among thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.