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 3-door coupe body style within the same 'Sports car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (front for the Mitsubishi and rear in the case of the Nissan). 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 6-cylinder, 24-valves 300hp engine designed by Nissan.

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. Still, apart from the official crash test results there are other things we need to be aware of. 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, Eclipse offers a marginal difference of 3% more metal.

Reliability is not the best thing to consider on the make level, but it is worth mentioning that Nissan does have a slight advantage, when all the models are taken into account. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Mitsubishi with an average rating of 4.6, and models under the Nissan badge with 4.3 out of 5. Some independent research have also placed Eclipse as average reliability-wise, and 350Z is more or less at the same level.Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as Eclipse rank it on average as 3.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 5.0 out of 5.

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

Nissan 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, Eclipse offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. 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. 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. 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™, among more than 12.000 different ones in our database.