THERE’S A NEW KID on the block. It’s zippy, it’s stylish and it’s built with Teutonic precision. It also happens to be the most fuel-efficient car on sale in Australia - and it ain’t that expensive either.

It’s the MINI Cooper D, the diesel-powered variant of the 2nd-gen MINI that’s been on sale in the UK since 2007, and has finally made it to Australian shores wearing a relatively modest pricetag of $33,750.

The diesel-drinking MINI may seem like an unlikely contender for the title of ‘most efficient car’, but thanks to a host of technological innovations borrowed from parent company BMW (and a thrifty diesel donk from PSA), the fashionable hatch now boasts a camel-like ability to go without fuel.

How efficient is it? MINI reckons it needs just 3.9 litres of diesel per 100km traveled on a combined urban/freeway loop, which is by far the best claimed figure for an Australian-market car, and one that beats many a hybrid. By MINI’s reckoning, it’ll cost you just $15 a week in fuel, based on today’s diesel prices and an average yearly travel distance of 15,000km.

It’s also meant to be pretty enviro-friendly, with its diesel engine producing just 104 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre.

But don’t just take MINI’s word for it. Take ours. We hopped along to the Cooper D’s launch event in the heart of Melbourne’s bustling CBD, where we got the chance to take the oil-burning Mini on an economy run of our very own. Results may surprise.

Cities, as most of you will know, are the bane of the commuter. Low speed limits, narrow streets, high traffic and suicidal bicycle couriers - not to mention the high density of traffic lights - all conspire to make progress slow and fuel consumption high.

To combat this, MINI has equipped the Cooper D with its own engine start-stop system, and it’s the perfect accessory for inner-urban driving. The logic is this: you don’t need power when you’re at a standstill, and an idling engine is simply wasting fuel. Stop the engine, you stop the consumption.

MINI’s system works by cutting the engine whenever the car is stopped (or nearly stopped) with the clutch out and the gearbox in neutral. It’s an unusual sensation when you experience the engine shutting down at the lights and on more than one occasion I stabbed the clutch pedal, thinking I’d stalled.

You get used to it after a while, but one thing that I didn’t acclimatize to was the eerie silence that enveloped the car whenever the engine was off. Prius owners will know what I’m talking about.

But it’s certainly not an intrusive device. When the engine is off the air conditioner still works, the lights remain on and the stereo still plays. When you’re ready to move off you simply depress the clutch and the engine fires up again, with no interruption to any electrically-powered systems. Start-up is instant too, and the engine is ready to go well before you’ve got it into gear.

I did manage to confuse the start-stop system once, but Lord knows how I did it. Besides, the system redeemed itself later by automatically restarting the engine after I, uh, managed to stall it.

Manual-phobes take note: the Auto Start-Stop system will only be fitted to cars with the six-speed manual gearbox. The six-speed paddle-shifted automatic isn’t compatible with the engine shutdown tech just yet, and uses 1.1l/100km more than the start-stop-equipped manual.