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 180hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 300hp engine designed by Nissan.

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? Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the German car offers a marginal difference of 1% more metal.

Manufacturers have been building their reliability reputation for decades now and, generally speaking, it appears that Nissan as a brand displays somewhat better results, when all the models are taken into account. 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. The same official information place A5 Coupe as average reliability-wise, and 350Z is more or less at the same level.That apart, owners of different cars powered by the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 5.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Nissan is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.6 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, 31km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be the German car, averaging around 7.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (38 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 62% difference compared to the Japanese car!

Nissan 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 German car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Nissan 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 not difficult to say then that if I'd need to make a choice, it would definitely be the Audi. 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 thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.