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 Mazda). The first one has a Alfa Romeo-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 150hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 146hp engine designed by Mazda.

The fact that the Mazda 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. 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? Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Italian car offers a considerable difference of 29% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Mazda is significantly less fault-prone, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Alfa Romeo with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Mazda 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. We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the Italian car rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Alfa Romeo is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 211 kilometers per hour, 6km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (32 mpg), in combined cycle.

Alfa Romeo 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, the Japanese car offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. From there things take a different direction, with Alfa Romeo being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the Mazda. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.