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 city car segment and utilize the same 5-door hatchback 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 Ford-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 100hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 111hp engine designed by Mitsubishi.

A starting point here would be to take a look at the results from European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP) tests which were performed on both of the cars, with the same number of safety stars gained in the process. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. Both vehicles belong to the city car segment, which is generally not a very good thing safety-wise, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. Furthermore, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, Mazda 2 offers a marginal difference of 9% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Mazda does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Mazda with an average rating of 4.4, and models under the Mitsubishi badge with 4.6 out of 5. Independent research findings rank 2 as average reliability-wise, and Colt is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as Mazda 2 rank it on average as 4.8, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.7 out of 5.

Mitsubishi is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.4 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 190 kilometers per hour, 9km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be Colt, averaging around 6.2 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (46 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 15% difference compared to Mazda 2.

Mazda 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, Mazda 2 offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Mitsubishi 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 Mitsubishi. 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. 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™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.