Bad news, Bimmer fans: the Bavarian automaker has officially denied that an M3 Touring is in the works.
We heard rumors of a wagon/estate-bodied M3 being planned, but the unfortunate part about rumors is that they are either wonderfully valid, or depressingly false. In this case, the renderings of a gorgeous, aggressive M3 wagon are the closest the world will get to the real thing.
M development chief Carsten Pries was rather blunt with Autovisie when he said an M3 Touring wouldn’t happen. In defense of BMW’s decision, Pries said a wagon bodied M3 wouldn’t have global appeal, and while it might sell well in Central Europe, where estates are common and desirable, elsewhere it would be a flop.
In the U.S. at least, Pries sadly speaks the truth. When Cadillac built the CTS-V wagon, it sold poorly and GM lost money on every sale. It’s a culture of SUVs and crossovers here in the States, and even a performance estate is a hard sale.
That means BMW won’t build a challenger to Mercedes-Benz’s C63 AMG Estate and Audi’s RS4 Avant, as much as we want to see that shootout.
Same goes for the M5 Touring, said Pries; at least until this present generation 5 Series is through production in 2017, there won’t be an M5 Estate sold in any region.
If you absolutely must have a sporty wagon and you live stateside, you’re limited to the Volkswagen Golf Sportwagen, Volvo V60, or Audi Allroad, and for each of those, the term “sporty” is used graciously.
It’s really a shame: an M3 wagon would, like the CTS-V wagon be a phenomenal sleeper car. Yes, it would have the same flared arches and quad exhaust as the sedan, but the average Subaru WRX driver would be totally slack-jawed if an estate slapped him with 425 horsepower for trying to overtake it.
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