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 330hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 306hp 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. 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, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, SLK offers a marginal difference of 7% 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, at least on all of the models level. 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 Mercedes Benz badge with 4.4 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 0.6 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 281 kilometers per hour, 31km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be SLK, averaging around 7.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (40 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 27% difference compared to Boxster.

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, SLK offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Porsche offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Mercedes Benz. 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. 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.