Yep, BMW has officially confirmed that it’s making a M3 Touring. It will be the first time ever that the company has made an estate version of the M3, opening up a new chapter in the iconic badge’s storied history.
Heck, even the guy at BMW who wrote the press release announcing the thing seemed to be typing in a state of mild disbelief:
“How about an extra-large and highly variable luggage compartment in a high-performance sports car? What is presently still a rhetorical question will soon become a concrete offer. A few weeks prior to the world premiere of the all-new BMW M3 Sedan, there are increasing signs of unparalleled model diversity in the range of premium mid-range BMW M automobiles.”
It’s always been a bit strange that BMW’s 3 Series Touring body style has alluded the full M3 treatment, especially since every other 3 Series body style has been catered for – saloon, coupe and convertible – and also that latterly BMW has been willing to do M versions of its biggest SUVs. There are also the small matters of the Audi RS4 and hyper-quick wagon versions of the C-Class by Mercedes-AMG, cars that an M3 Touring will surely steal many sales from.
That BMW doesn’t offer a direct alternative – and one that would almost certainly be the dynamic apex of the bunch – has always seemed baffling. BMW tuning specialist Alpina has knocked up a few 3 Series Touring based alternatives down the years, all of them excellent (like the B3, below), but they’re costly and…well, it’s not the same, you know?
BMW has toyed with the idea before though, making an M3 Touring prototype in two decades ago based on the third generation BMW M3 (the E46 model). That car (below) was shown but never put into production, for some reason. BMW does actually reference this car in the announcement of this M3 Touring, saying it “[proved] that the high flexibility and seamless integration of high-performance sports cars with specific body features could be incorporated into the BMW M3 manufacturing process was achieved.”
Weird, then, that it's waited 20 years and allowed another two versions of the M3 to pass before doing anything about it.
Still, we should be grateful that BMW finally has its fast ass in gear and will make an estate car that could legitimately become the best pound-for-pound family car in the world – 9/10ths of the space and performance of a (mythical) BMW M5 Touring or Audi RS6, but tens of thousands of pounds cheaper.
So, what will it be like? Well, if we already had a current generation M3 Saloon we could probably make a very good guess, but we don’t – that car isn’t coming until next year, with this Touring version likely to follow in 2022. BMW does tell us that it’ll get six-cylinder turbo power, and here’s what our excitable BMW copywriter had to say about the styling: “Further speculation on engine and performance is quite welcome. But wide axles, conspicuously large front air intakes and four exhaust tailpipes at the rear leave no doubt that the iconic M DNA will be fully perceptible despite the car’s new body design.”
It’s understood that the ‘base’ car will have a manual gearbox and rear-wheel drive (double hurrah!) but that xDrive four-wheel drive and a twin-clutch automatic gearbox will both be optional. And as for power…well, with the last generation M3 CS pushing out 450bhp, figure on at least 480bh and possibly eclipsing 500bhp if BMW really wants to make a song and dance about things. The Mercedes-AMG C63 S has 510 metric horsepower, for reference.
The BMW M3 Saloon is due to be shown in full very shortly, which will give us a lot more information on the drivetrain and specification. We have a feeling that a fair few buyers of M3s might be holding onto their deposits for another year until the Touring comes out. It’s what we’d do.
Keyword: New BMW M3 Touring: everything we know so far