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 BMW and front in the case of the Audi). The first one has a BMW-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 115hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 20-valves 150hp engine designed by Audi.

The fact that the Audi got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, offers a slight advantage, as the 4-star rating is better than none. 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, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Audi TT offers a considerable difference of 15% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of BMW, as well as Audi, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Z3 as average reliability-wise, and TT is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as BMW Z3 rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.5 out of 5.

Audi is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.6 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 214 kilometers per hour, 20km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (35 mpg), in combined cycle.

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 TT beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. It all continues in the same direction, with Audi being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. 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 Audi. 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. 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™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.