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 4-cylinder, 16-valves 204hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 265hp engine designed by Porsche.

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, SLK offers a marginal difference of 3% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Mercedes Benz does have a slight advantage, all the models observed together. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Mercedes Benz with an average rating of 4.4, and models under the Porsche badge with 3.7 out of 5. Unfortunatelly, I don't have enough insight that would allow me to comment in more details on the specific models level. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as SLK rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Porsche is a bit more agile, reaching 100km/h in 0.7 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 264 kilometers per hour, 20km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be SLK, averaging around 6.9 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (41 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 22% difference compared to Boxster.

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, SLK offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Porsche offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. 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 Mercedes Benz. 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. 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™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.