Overview

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 6-cylinder, 24-valves 272hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 310hp engine designed by Porsche.

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, but it doesn't do much to help us decide between the two. On the other hand, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, Boxster offers a marginal difference of 5% more metal.

Reliability

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Mercedes Benz does have a slight advantage, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Mercedes Benz with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Porsche badge with 4.0 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed SLK 4% above average, and Boxster 54% below the first one. We should definitely mention that owners of cars with the same powertrain as SLK rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Performance & Fuel economy

Porsche is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.4 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 274 kilometers per hour, 24km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be Boxster, averaging around 9.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (29 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 8% difference compared to SLK.

Verdict

Mercedes Benz 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 my opinion, everything taken into account, Boxster offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Porsche outracing its opponent in any situation possible, making it better choice for boy racers. To make things even better, it consumps less fuel! All together, there's not much more to say, in this case I wouldn't even consider anything but Porsche. 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. Also, you could use the oportunity to find out which car, everything taken into account, would be the perfect choice for you in the eyes of the virtual adviser™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.