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 coupe body style within the same 'Sports car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (rear for the Mercedes Benz and front in the case of the Alfa Romeo). The first one has a Mercedes Benz-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 136hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 12-valves 205hp engine designed by Alfa Romeo.

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, but that fact doesn't break the tie between the two cars. On the other hand, taking kerb weight as an important factor into account, the Italian car offers a considerable difference of 12% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Mercedes Benz does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Mercedes Benz with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Alfa Romeo badge with 4.2 out of 5. Independent research findings rank CLK as average reliability-wise, and GTV is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the German car rank it on average as 3.5, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Alfa Romeo is way more agile, reaching 100km/h in 3.6 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 235 kilometers per hour, 27km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the German car, averaging around 9.4 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (30 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 15% difference compared to the Italian car.

Mercedes Benz 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 Italian car offers significantly better overall protection, taking the lead here. It all continues in the same direction, with Alfa Romeo 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 Alfa Romeo. 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.