A SPORT AUTO SUPERTEST AT THE 'RING FEATURING THE NEW BMW M3 COMPETITION TOURING
The BMW M3 Touring isn’t just a new M-Performance car that’s got all the right bits in all the right places to make it something special, it’s a car that actually gives hope to automotive fanatics the world over. With the popularity of SUVs, there has been a steady decline in the number of new wagons on the market with the only decent ones coming from Audi. Weirdly, while BMW has had loads of different versions of the money-making 3-Series range, there was never a Touring with an M badge on it. You’d think that it would be a no-brainer to add one to the lineup, especially since the Bavarian automaker has produced a 3-Series wagon dating back to 1988. If you scour the now-defunct forums and do a YouTube deep dive, you’ll find that an M-powered Touring isn’t a new idea, well not at the end-user level. There’s a handful of BMW fanatics that have used a 320d Touring as a base and outfitted with all that relevant model’s sister M3 parts to create homemade Tourings. Some of these were even all-wheel drive. The big bosses at BMW eventually woke up to the fact that there’s actually a market for these cars and when 2022 rolled around, one built by BMW was introduced to the automotive world. The car has gained instant celebrity status and has even made that oversized kidney grille look good with a body that has more, well, body. The only thing the new BMW M3 Touring needed was an impressive list of performance figures, and thanks to the likes of Sport Auto, it seems they did just that. Sure, there are claims from BMW about the power and specs, but here at SXdrv we much prefer it when an external company/publication does independent testing.
The all-new M3 Touring features BMW’s legendary twin-turbocharged inline-6-cylinder powerplant that’s rated to produce 375 kW and a high 650 Nm of torque. This has been paired up with the company’s lightning-fast 8-speed M Steptronic transmission with Drivelogic that swaps cogs in mere split seconds. To make things even better, just like the iX models of old, the car has been outfitted with BMW’s xDrive all-wheel drive system as well as the Active M differential. When you read up on BMW’s fact sheet for the car, it claims the wagon can hit 1oo km/h in less than 4 seconds with a 3.6-second timed run. They also say the car has a 280 km/h top speed. When you watch the video not only shows off the great handling and power of the car but also the massive, shiny titanium man bits that Sport Auto's test driver Christian Gebhardt hides in his race suit as he got the car up to 285km/h. This is why we don’t trust what the manufacturers claim, especially on performance models where they seem to tame down the results. It’s not only BMW that does this, it’s common amongst all the usual performance models from the usual suspects. Even with the car’s increased size and weight, the thing looks to be a scalpel on wheels by the way it can carve up the bends and how it can be thrown around at 10/10ths. This is the car that everyone imagined could be possible if it was built, and then some. The car was in stock from, as per BMW and fitted with Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 tyres, and it posted a Nordschleife lap time of 07.34,39 min.
Take a look at the YouTube video from the crew at Sport Auto as they wring the absolute heck out of the new BMW M3 Touring around the famed Nurburgring Nordschleife, the track that's the benchmark for performance testing new cars. With Sport Auto's test driver Christian Gebhardt at the wheel, this new M-car is an absolute weapon, and makes you actually like the massive grille: BMW M3 Competition Touring | Nordschleife HOT LAP 7.34,39 min | sport auto Supertest | sport auto
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BMW M3 Touring M3 Touring Wagon Longroof Sport Auto Supertest Nordschleife Nurburgring Nordschleife Nurburgring SXdrv News