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 (rear for the Jaguar and front in the case of the Volvo). The first one has a Jaguar-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 240hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 272hp engine designed by Volvo.

The fact that the Volvo 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. 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, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the British car offers a marginal difference of 2% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Volvo does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Jaguar with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Volvo badge with 3.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank S-Type as average reliability-wise, and S80 is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the British car rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Volvo is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, 16km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the British car, averaging around 10.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (27 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 10% difference compared to the Swedish car.

Volvo 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 Swedish car offers much better overall protection, which launches it ahead of the other contender. It all continues in the same direction, with Volvo 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 Volvo. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.