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 city car segment and utilize the same 3-door hatchback 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 Peugeot-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 75hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 8-valves 75hp engine designed by FIAT.

The fact that the Citroen got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, doesn't actually do much for it, as it's still a lousy 2-star coffin on wheels. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. Both vehicles belong to the city car segment, which is generally not a very good thing 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, the Italian car offers a considerable difference of 19% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that FIAT does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Citroen with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the FIAT badge with 4.3 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Saxo as average reliability-wise, and Palio is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the French car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.7 out of 5.

Citroen is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 175 kilometers per hour, 7km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy things look pretty much the same for both cars, averaging around 6.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (42 mpg), in combined cycle.

FIAT 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. From there things take a different direction, with Citroen being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! 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. 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. 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.