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 (rear for the Mercedes Benz and front in the case of the Volvo). The first one has a Mercedes Benz-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 272hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 5-cylinder, 20-valves 220hp engine designed by Volvo.

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. Moving further on, let's take a closer look at some additional safety-related facts. 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, the German car offers a marginal difference of 1% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Volvo 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 Volvo badge with 3.2 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed CLK as average reliability-wise, and C70 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 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.9 out of 5.

Mercedes Benz is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.9 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 250 kilometers per hour, 10km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Swedish car, averaging around 9.1 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (31 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 11% difference compared to the German 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 German car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Mercedes Benz 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... At the end, as much as I'd like to give you a winner here, it's simply a pure tie if you ask me. Nevertheless, let's not forget that people have different preferences and needs, so what really counts is your personal feel. I'm only here to help. 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.