| First Drive | Castle Combe | BMW 116d |

The BMW 118d is already the current World Green Car of the Year, so you'd think BMW would leave the environmental thing behind for a bit and concentrate on something else; nobody would blame it. And, actually, it sort of did, because the latest cars it has announced were the very un-environmental X5 M and X6 M super SUV partnership. Thankfully, at the same time, it was beavering away at the opposite end of the environmental spectrum with the 116d, which is sort of like offering a stick of celery to eat a mound of foie gras with.

This particular stick of celery is a carb-free dieter's dream. Look at the nutritional information on the back of the packet (or smeared across the side of it, as was the case with the cars we drove at the launch...) and you'll find 118g/km of CO₂ and 64.2mpg. It's dreamy stuff for the style conscious junior manager.

In the Metal

Well, it looks like a 1 Series. If you haven't seen a million of them by now we'd question where you've been, but just for clarity's sake we can confirm it still carries its flame surfacing with bizarre efficiency; a dichotomous mass of straight slashes and banana curves that, customarily for a Bangle-era Beemer, does nothing if not provoke a reaction.

And because every single one of them will get de-badged anyway, there's really nothing to tell a 116d apart from any other 1 Series. However, pure benevolence of a rare kind among the German Three has prompted BMW to throw in £1,315 worth of sports-flavoured kit for free. So, for the same price as an ES model (which is £810 more expensive than a basic one, but who'd buy one of those?) you can now have a Sport model loaded with 17-inch alloys, sports seats and a multi-function sports steering wheel. Generous.

What you get for your Money

You get that Sport upgrade we've just mentioned, which goes a little way to cushioning the blow of an £17,605 asking price. In case you're wondering, 'Sport' is as opposed to 'M Sport', the must-have accessory pack for any self-respecting BMW driver.

But, to be honest, the list price tends not to matter too much with these things because, for a start, they tend to hold their value really well. More importantly though, a huge chunk of the sales of cars like this go to fleet buyers who simply email a car list back to their boss with 'BMW please' written in the header box. What those people are getting - on top of a £35 per year tax bill and miserly fuel consumption - is a 13 percent benefit in kind rating for a deliciously light tax burden.

In practice, and as with any other BMW owner, the outlay buys more prestige than it does actual equipment, though it does get the essential re-sale trio of nice alloys, air conditioning and a CD player. Oh, and it also gets precious little rear legroom because of that pesky rear-wheel drivetrain...

Driving it

...which is a price worth paying, we think. It's not as if we're talking Audi TT-style amputee-only rear space, and the trade off is a drive as satisfying as any non-hot hatch you're likely to pilot. Obviously there are a myriad of performance hatchbacks that, despite being saddled with simplistic front-wheel drive setups, are tangibly more entertaining than the One. However, there aren't that many this slow that do as good a job on the twisty stuff.

We drove our 116d on a BMW 'economy drive' in which the maker separated a bunch of usually lawless car hacks into teams and offered a prize for the winning side - a bit like The Apprentice but with a slightly less agonising boardroom experience and fewer smartarse call centre managers fighting with each other. So, for once we all drove like we were paying for our own diesel, and you know... some of the cars hit over 60mpg. Ours, for shame, hit a mere 53.3mpg (according to the clock), despite our best efforts. There was the 'deer incident' mind, but we don't like to talk about that.

The good thing is that, despite the 116d feeling slow and being reluctant to pull in the tall sixth gear, it's got enough power to keep it happy on the motorway and enough poke low down (140lb.ft) to just avoid feeling sluggish. It's EfficientDynamics at its most efficient, which means you don't really ever notice it unless BMW wants you to. So, you will enjoy the eerie silence at junctions when the start-stop system cuts the engine out, and you will get annoyed with the shift indicator constantly telling you you're in the wrong gear; but you won't feel the front radiator closing so the engine can heat up quicker, and nor will you detect the electric steering assistance switching itself on only when you actually turn the wheel. Touché BMW.

The 116d's ride still sucks, though. Bump, bump, bump.

Worth Noting

NASA inspired second-generation EfficientDynamics. Anything inspired by NASA is worth mentioning, isn't it - like the pen I once had that spacemen used because it could write upside down in zero gravity. I loved that pen. Then some killjoy told me that Russian spacemen used a pencil to do the same thing. Oh well.

Still, the Russians probably aren't developing heat energy regeneration systems that convert waste heat from a car exhaust and transfer it into electrical energy for five percent fuel savings. Clever stuff, eh?

Summary

The new BMW 116d isn't going to set your world alight and there is a tangible performance compromise to be made here for all the cleanliness - particularly compared to the hardly profligate 118d, which is very notably swifter. However, if cheap running costs are what you're after with your dose of hatchback prestige and purity of setup, there's much to be admired here. The same 1 Series flaws apply - namely a distinct lack of practicality and wooden ride - but if you can live with those things, here's your next company car.