BMW Building M3 Wagon, Teases Juicy Rump

BMW teased the M3 Touring today, surprising just about everyone, as no one outside the company actually knew it was planning to build a wagon version of the car. Rumors of substance had been circulating for about a month, since we live in the information age, but it’d be a new trick for the M3.

Obviously, we’re going to gush about it because people who write about cars tend to gravitate toward fun vehicles that fly under the radar. Any advantage you can give yourself against the watchful eyes of highway patrol are always welcome, and there’s just something about a quick wagon that makes you feel unique — even if owning one doesn’t automatically make it true.

Teased on Wednesday, the model appeared on the BMW M’s Instagram account with the phrase “mic drop,” confirming that the brand feels that it has already triumphed just by bringing the wagon to market. However, exactly which markets might make you cringe when the time comes.

Performance-focused wagons (estates) tend to remain isolated in the European market, despite Americans tending to enjoy more interior volume than their global contemporaries.

The United States had a long, healthy run with the station wagon, but it started to lose acceptability in the 1980s when it was satirized in movies like Ghostbusters and Vacation as being passé. Even if some of us think the Ecto 1 rivals the Batmobile in terms of overt coolness, the Griswold Family Truckster was a real hunk of crap — embodying everything Americans hated about wagons and the car-buying experience for comedic effect. Even its spiritual successor, the minivan, was forced to put its best days behind it as crossovers achieved market dominance as the family excursion vehicle du jour.

That’s a long-winded way of saying the M3 Touring may not make it out of Europe. Canadians and Americans just don’t buy them in the kind of volumes that warrants shipping them overseas, though the car’s specialty nature does offer some small amount of hope.

BMW told us the M3 Touring is approximately two years away from finishing its development cycle — indicating that they’re just starting to work on it. But the brand says they should begin appearing on public roads as test mules soon enough, and will undoubtedly spend some of that time on the Nürburgring to ensure it’s a genuine M.

Expect a familiar twin-turbo straight-six producing roughly 500 horsepower (depending on trim) and gigantic kidney grilles. Based on the teaser, it also looks as though the wagon will get a new bumper and a fairly aggressive rear diffuser.

[Image: BMW]