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 Lancia). The first one has a Jaguar-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 201hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 5-cylinder, 20-valves 170hp engine designed by FIAT.

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. 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? On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Italian car offers a marginal difference of 7% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning 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 Jaguar, as well as Lancia, with the same average rating of 4.1 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the British car rank it on average as 2.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

Jaguar is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.9 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 228 kilometers per hour, 11km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the British car, averaging around 9.5 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (30 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 15% difference compared to the Italian car.

Lancia 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 Italian car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Jaguar offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the Jaguar. 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.