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 4-door sedan body style within the same 'Luxury car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Chrysler and rear in the case of the Lexus). The first one has a Chrysler-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 203hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 220hp engine designed by Toyota.

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 luxury car segment, which is generally a very good thing safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Japanese car offers a marginal difference of 6% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Lexus is significantly less fault-prone, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Chrysler with an average rating of 4.4, and models under the Lexus badge with 4.9 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 300M as average reliability-wise, and GS is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the American car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Lexus is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.8 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 230 kilometers per hour, 20km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the American car, averaging around 10.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (27 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 10% difference compared to the Japanese car.

Lexus 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 slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Lexus outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the Lexus. 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.