Overview

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 2-door cabriolet 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 Nissan). 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 300hp engine designed by Nissan.

Safety

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. That aside, let's consider some other aspects which affect safety. 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?

Reliability

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Nissan as a brand displays somewhat better results, all the models observed together. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Audi with an average rating of 4.2, and models under the Nissan badge with 4.3 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed A5 Coupe 50% below average, and 350Z 72% above the first one. That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 4.3, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Performance & Fuel economy

There's not enough data for me to elaborate on the subject, I'm affraid.

Verdict

Nissan definitely wins the reliability competition, everything taken into consideration. The most important thing when deciding between any two vehicles should always be safety, both passive and active. In this case though, it seems that both cars show similar levels of passenger protection all together, so that won't break a tie. When it comes to performance, both vehicles provide similar experience, so I wouldn't point any of them out. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the Nissan. 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 more than 12.000 different ones in our database.