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 Honda-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 240hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 146hp engine designed by Mazda.

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. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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, S2000 offers a considerable difference of 17% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Honda does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Honda with an average rating of 4.7, and models under the Mazda badge with 4.4 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as S2000 rank it on average as 4.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Honda is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.3 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 241 kilometers per hour, 36km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be MX-5, averaging around 8.7 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (32 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 14% difference compared to S2000.

Honda 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, S2000 offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with Honda 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 Honda. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.