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 front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Daihatsu-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 87hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 130hp engine designed by FIAT.

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, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Italian car offers a considerable difference of 23% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Daihatsu does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Daihatsu with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the FIAT 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 the Japanese car rank it on average as 4.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 1.0 out of 5.

FIAT 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 200 kilometers per hour, 20km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Japanese car, averaging around 6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (47 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 40% difference compared to the Italian car!

Daihatsu 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 significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with FIAT 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 Daihatsu. 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. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.