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 (rear for the Jaguar and front in the case of the Audi). The first one has a Jaguar-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 8-cylinder, 32-valves 300hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 265hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

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 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. On the other hand, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the German car offers a marginal difference of 5% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Jaguar, as well as Audi, with the same average rating of 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank XK 14% below average, and A5 Coupe 36% below the first one. We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the British car rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Jaguar 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 250 kilometers per hour, 4km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 8.6 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (33 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 31% difference compared to the British car!

Jaguar 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 offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Jaguar being considerably quicker, thus putting more smile on driver's face. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... It's not difficult to say then that if I'd need to make a choice, it would definitely be the Audi. 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. I suggest you spend two more minutes in order to find out which car, based on your needs and budget, would be picked by the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.