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 Volkswagen and rear in the case of the Mercedes Benz). The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 211hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 204hp engine designed by Mercedes Benz.

The fact that the Volkswagen 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. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the sports car segment, which is generally classifying them somewhere in the middle safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, Eos offers a marginal difference of 6% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Volkswagen does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Volkswagen with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Mercedes Benz 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. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Eos rank it on average as 3.4, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 244 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 7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (40 mpg), in combined cycle.

Volkswagen 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, Eos beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. From there things take a different direction, with Mercedes Benz being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the Volkswagen. 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.