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 3-door coupe body style and the front wheel drive system, it all comes up to the specific petrol engine choice they offer. The first one has a Mitsubishi-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 265hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 4-cylinder, 16-valves 265hp engine designed by Volkswagen.

The fact that the Volkswagen got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, puts it sky-high safety-wise, in my eyes at least. 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 Japanese car offers a considerable difference of 19% more metal.

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem 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 Mitsubishi with an average rating of 4.6, and models under the Volkswagen badge with 4.2 out of 5. The same official information place Eclipse as average reliability-wise, and Scirocco is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Japanese car rank it on average as 3.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

There's not enough data for me to elaborate on the subject, I'm affraid.

Mitsubishi 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 beats the other contender by far, making it the best choice without even considering other things. When it comes to performance, both vehicles provide similar experience, so I wouldn't point any of them out. Fuel consumption is more or less the same. I believe that, when we take all into account, we have only one winner here - the Volkswagen. 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. 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.