IT ALWAYS WAS BMW’S INEXPLICABLY MISSING MODEL
It’s impossible to not get excited about an M3 Touring. We Brits have a longstanding love of estate cars, and quick ones especially, because the marriage of super-saloon fireworks and XL coachwork represents one big box-ticking frenzy.
This is why any new Audi RS6 Avant garners as much media attention over here as the latest Mclaren or RS Porsche – never mind the fact that the hottest estates have been furnished with genuine supercar-grade power for some time now.
These unusual machines are fast and special, but they’re also likeably low key and are the respectable face of hooligan engineering. An M3 Touring would be conveniently sized, too, so, pending pricing and assuming that BMW can nail the dynamics, what exactly is there not to like?
What makes M wagons more alluring still is that they’re really rare. The only cars of this ilk ever to leave Garching are the E34 M5 Touring and E61 M5 Touring – legends both – although an M3 Touring concept was made for the E46 generation.
This first-ever M3 Touring should be similarly special. And if it can prompt Alfa Romeo to build an estate variant of the Ferrari-blooded Giulia Quadrifoglio, it will go down as an outright legend.