Overview

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 Mercedes Benz). 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 591hp engine designed by Mercedes Benz.

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. Furthermore, when it comes to weight, a factor that most people underestimate, the Japanese car offers a marginal difference of 8% more metal.

Reliability

I don't like generalizing things when it comes to reliability, although it does seem that Nissan as a brand displays somewhat better results, at least on all of the models level. These are the results of an independent reasearch, while our visitors describe reliability of Nissan, as well as Mercedes Benz, with the same average rating of 4.3 out of 5. The same official information place GT-R 50% below average, and SLS those same 50% above the first one. Above it all, drivers of cars with the same engine as the Japanese car rank it on average as 5.0, while the one under the competitor's bonnet gets 3.0 out of 5.

Performance & Fuel economy

Nissan is undoubtly more agile, reaching 100km/h in 1 seconds less than its competitor. Still, it lacks the power to win the top speed competition, topping at 315 kilometers per hour, 5km/h less 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 12% difference compared to the German car.

Verdict

Nissan is apparently more reliable, not too much, but just enough. 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 Japanese car offers slightly better overall protection and takes the lead. It all continues in the same direction, with Nissan offering somewhat better performance, just enough to call it quicker. 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. In case you have two minutes to spare I invite you to define your needs, desires and budget and see which car would be chosen by the virtual adviser™, out of 12.000+ vehicles we currently have in our database.