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 Mercedes Benz-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 8-cylinder, 24-valves 367hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 231hp engine designed by BMW.

The fact that the BMW got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, offers a slight advantage, as the 4-star rating is better than none. 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. Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, CLK offers a potentially life-saving difference of 33% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that both brands display similar results in faults and breakdowns, when all the models are taken into account. These are the official statistics, while our visitors describe reliability of Mercedes Benz with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the BMW badge with 4.1 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed CLK as average reliability-wise, and Z4 is more or less at the same level.We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as CLK rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.5 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 250 kilometers per hour, exactly the same as the other car does. When it comes to fuel economy an obvious choice would be BMW Z4, averaging around 9.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (31 mpg), in combined cycle. That's 35% difference compared to CLK!

BMW 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, BMW Z4 offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Mercedes Benz offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. It does come at a cost though, and that's the fuel consumption... All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but 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. I suggest you spend two more minutes in order to find out which car, based on your needs and budget, would be picked by the virtual adviser™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.