Compare two cars
Compare any two cars and get our Virtual Adviser™ opinion
Marketing
Dimensons & Outlines
Engine
0.7 Suprex 100 BRABUS
Performance (manual gearbox)
Performance (automatic gearbox)
Expenses
Virtual Adviser's™ opinion
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 sports car segment and utilize the same 2-door cabriolet body style and the rear wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Mazda-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 160hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 3-cylinder, 6-valves 100hp engine designed by Smart.
SafetyUnfortunatelly, 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. Furthermore, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Japanese car offers a considerable difference of 29% more metal.
ReliabilityI don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, 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 Smart badge with 3.9 out of 5. Independent research findings rank MX-5 as average reliability-wise, and Roadster is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Japanese car rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.
Performance & Fuel economyMazda is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1.9 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 210 kilometers per hour, 20km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 5.3 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (53 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 55% difference compared to the Japanese car!
Verdict
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, the Japanese car offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with Mazda 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 really tough to make a final decision here, but if I'd need to, I'd say Smart. Anyway, that's the most objective conclusion I could've came up with and it's based solely on the information found on this website. Aspects such as design, practicality, brand value and driving experience are there for you to measure them out. 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.