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Virtual Adviser's™ opinion
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 (front for the Alfa Romeo and rear in the case of the Nissan). The first one has a Alfa Romeo-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 200hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 300hp engine designed by Nissan.
SafetyUnfortunatelly, 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, 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 Japanese car offers a considerable difference of 10% more metal.
ReliabilityManufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Nissan is significantly less fault-prone, all the models observed together. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Alfa Romeo with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Nissan badge with 4.3 out of 5. The same official information place Brera as average reliability-wise, and 350Z is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the Italian car rank it on average as 3.4, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.
Performance & Fuel economyNissan 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 250 kilometers per hour, 18km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Italian car, averaging around 8.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (34 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 46% difference compared to the Japanese car!
Verdict
Nissan 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 Japanese car offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with Nissan being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... At the end, as much as I'd like to give you a winner here, it's simply a pure tie if you ask me. 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. 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.