Fifty years in the making, and it was worth the wait
BMW built M3s for five decades without ever making a wagon. They made sedans, they made coupes, they made convertibles, they even made four-door Gran Coupes with sloped rooflines that complicate the loading of anything taller than a laptop bag. But the wagon – the body style that arguably makes the most sense for someone who wants to drive fast and also live a normal life – they left alone. Until now.
The G81 M3 Touring is the first production M3 wagon. It is also, based on about fifteen minutes of thinking about it, the M3 that should probably always have existed. The question of why it took this long does not have a satisfying answer beyond BMW being cautious about cannibalising their own 5 Series and not wanting to dilute the M3’s performance credentials with something that felt compromised. The G81 proves both concerns were unfounded.
What you are actually getting
The M3 Touring comes in one specification for Australia: Competition xDrive. There is no manual gearbox option, no rear-wheel drive variant. If either of those things is a dealbreaker for you, the G80 sedan is the answer. For everyone else, the combination of the S58 engine making 375kW and 550Nm, the eight-speed automatic, and BMW’s xDrive all-wheel drive system is an excellent place to start.
The practical numbers are genuinely useful. Boot space sits at 500 litres with all seats in place, expanding to around 1,510 litres with the rear seats folded. For context, that is more than some dedicated SUVs. The rear seats fold in a 40/20/40 configuration, the load lip is low enough to be manageable, and the wagon roofline means actual vertical space inside the cargo area rather than the tapered boot openings that sports sedans force on you.
The wheelbase is the same as the G80 sedan. The front-to-rear weight distribution is near enough identical. BMW’s engineers have been clear that the Touring variant was not a case of taking the sedan and stretching it – it was engineered alongside the sedan from the beginning, which is part of why it drives so well.
How it drives
The honest answer is that it drives like an M3 with a bit more mass over the rear axle. The steering is the same. The engine response is the same. The way xDrive distributes torque and the way the M Drive systems manage everything is the same. On a technical road, you would need to be measuring carefully to notice the difference between the sedan and the wagon in terms of handling balance.
What you do notice is that the Touring feels planted in a way that suits fast road driving particularly well. The rear weight from the longer body actually works in its favour on highway sweepers and flowing country roads where lateral stability matters more than outright rotation. It is not as pointy as the rear-wheel drive sedan in slow tight corners, but it is not supposed to be. The xDrive system is progressive enough that you can still adjust the car’s attitude on throttle when conditions and your settings allow it.
On a track, which is not the car’s natural habitat but absolutely something owners will do, it acquits itself well. It is not a track day car in the way the sedan with rear-wheel drive is, but it will do track days without embarrassing itself or you.
School run to circuit without changing cars
This is the pitch that actually holds up under scrutiny. An M3 Touring in Comfort mode with the exhaust note dialled back is a genuinely comfortable, quiet car. The suspension handles Australian road surfaces without beating passengers around. The rear seat is usable for adults on trips under two hours. The boot takes prams, gear bags, weekend luggage, or flat-pack furniture from IKEA with equal indifference.
Then you change the drive mode settings, tighten the adaptive dampers, and you have a car that will cover ground at a rate that embarrasses almost anything it encounters on a public road. The same vehicle. The same fuel in the tank. This breadth of ability is not unique to the M3 Touring – the Panamera Sport Turismo does something similar, and the Mercedes-AMG E63 Estate has done it for years – but the M3 Touring does it at a price point that makes those alternatives look expensive, and it does it with a driving feel that neither of them quite matches.
Pricing and the wait
Australian pricing for the M3 Touring lands at approximately $175,000 to $185,000 drive-away. That is a meaningful premium over the sedan, and LCT applies to both at standard rates given that neither qualifies for the fuel-efficient threshold. The gap is real, but the Touring costs more because it is a harder car to build and because demand has been strong enough that BMW has not needed to discount.
Waiting lists have been a genuine issue since Australian deliveries began. If you want one and you have not placed an order, do that. The lead time is not indefinite, but it is not short either, and dealers are not sitting on unsold stock.
Who actually buys this car
The honest profile of an M3 Touring buyer is someone who has probably owned a performance car before, has a family or a life that generates genuine cargo requirements, and is not willing to compromise on the driving experience to accommodate that practicality. They have likely looked at the M3 sedan and found the boot too small. They have looked at the M5 and found the price too high or the car too large. They may have looked at SUVs and correctly decided that an SUV is not what they want to drive.
For that buyer, the G81 is the specific answer to a specific problem. BMW took fifty years to build it, and it turns out that was the only thing wrong with the idea.