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 luxury car segment and utilize the same 4-door sedan 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 185hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 170hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

The fact that the Audi got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the luxury car segment, which is generally a very good thing 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 15% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Lancia does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Lancia with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Audi badge with 4.2 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Thesis as average reliability-wise, and A6 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Italian car rank it on average as 5.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Audi is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.5 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 227 kilometers per hour, 3km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 7.9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (36 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 41% difference compared to the Italian car!

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, the German car beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. It all continues in the same direction, with Audi being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Audi. 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. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.