Two significantly similar cars, no doubt about that. Still, each one has something different to offer. Having both cars powered by diesel engines and utilizing the 2-door coupe body style within the same 'Sports car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Audi and rear in the case of the BMW). The first one has a Volkswagen-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 170hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 286hp engine designed by BMW.

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. 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, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, 6 Series offers a considerable difference of 11% 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, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Audi, as well as BMW, with the same average rating of 4.2 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 A5 Coupe rank it on average as 4.2, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 4.0 out of 5.

BMW is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, 20km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be A5 Coupe, averaging around 5.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (55 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 35% difference compared to 6 Series.

Audi 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, 6 Series offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with BMW 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... No mistake, whatever you decide here, but I'd still go for the BMW. 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.