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 large family car segment and utilize the same 5-door wagon 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 FIAT-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 5-cylinder, 20-valves 155hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 155hp engine designed by Alfa Romeo.

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. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. Both vehicles belong to the large family car segment, which is generally a good thing safety-wise, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Lybra offers a marginal difference of 5% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Lancia as a brand displays somewhat better results, when all the models are taken into account. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Lancia with an average rating of 4.1, and models under the Alfa Romeo badge with 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank Lybra as average reliability-wise, and 156 is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as Lybra rank it on average as 4.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Alfa Romeo is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.6 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 214 kilometers per hour, 4km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be 156, averaging around 8.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (32 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 13% difference compared to Lybra.

Lancia 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, Lybra offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Alfa Romeo being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! It's not difficult to say then that if I'd need to make a choice, it would definitely be the Alfa Romeo. 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.