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 coupe body style within the same 'Sports car' segment, the only major difference here really is their wheel drive configuration (4 x 4 for the Nissan and rear in the case of the Ford). The first one has a Nissan-engineered powertrain under the hood, a 6-cylinder, 24-valves 600hp unit, while the other one gets its power and torque from a 8-cylinder, 32-valves 421hp engine designed by Ford.

The fact that the Ford got tested by the European New Car Assessment Programme (Euro NCAP), while the other contender didn't, doesn't actually do much for it, as it's still a lousy 2-star coffin on wheels. 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, still it doesn't help us solve our dilemma, does it? Furthermore, if we'd like to consider vehicle mass in this context too, which we definitely should, the American car offers a marginal difference of 1% 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, at least on all of the models level. That's the official data, while our visitors describe reliability of Nissan with an average rating of 4.3, and models under the Ford badge with 4.4 out of 5. Independent research findings rank GT-R as average reliability-wise, and Mustang 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 5.0 out of 5, exactly the same as the other one.

Nissan is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 2.1 seconds less than its competitor. In addition to that it accelerates all the way to 315 kilometers per hour, 65km/h more than the other car. When it comes to fuel economy the winner has to be the Japanese car, averaging around 11.8 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers (24 mpg), in combined cycle. We can't ignore that 14% difference compared to the American car.

Ford 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 American car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. From there things take a different direction, with Nissan 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 Nissan. In any case that's my personal view, built upon all the data available to me. What should decide here though is the way you feel about the two vehicles, and I hope you'll find my guidelines useful in the process. 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 thousands of similar, yet so different vehicles.