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 coupe body style within the same 'Sports car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (rear for the Mazda and front in the case of the Hyundai). The first one has a Mazda-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 2-cylinder, 0-valves 231hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 186hp engine designed by Hyundai.

The fact that the Hyundai got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. 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 that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the Japanese car offers a considerable difference of 13% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, all the models observed together. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Mazda with an average rating of 4.4, and models under the Hyundai badge with 4.5 out of 5. Independent research findings rank RX-8 as average reliability-wise, and Veloster is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as the Japanese car rank it on average as 5.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Mazda is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 235 kilometers per hour, 21km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the Korean car, averaging around 6.9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (41 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 65% difference compared to the Japanese car!

Hyundai 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 Korean car beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. From there things take a different direction, with Mazda 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... All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Hyundai. 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.