BMW Goes All-Out With The M3 Touring GT3

There’s something inherently cool about a fast estate car. Putting an abundance of power in a car that can also haul the wife and kids to the south of France for a summer holiday just makes total sense. It will make long journeys comfortable and fast, as you blast down the highway with ease. But it’s rare to find one that goes beyond highway speeds, or even one that is prepped for track use. The fantastic Volvo 850 Touring Car that shook up the British Touring Car Championship in the mid-1990s is probably the first and only one that comes to mind. Now, though, there’s a new track-prepped estate car making the rounds, and it already won its debut race! Here’s the mad-cool BMW M3 Touring GT3!

As mentioned, a fast estate gives you the best of both worlds. For years, the niche category was dominated by the Audi RS6 Avant and the Mercedes E63 AMG, but that other German has re-entered the mix not too long ago. Bringing Touring models of the M3 and M5 to public roads in 2022 and 2024, respectively, BMW has definitely caught car enthusiasts’ attention. BMW has built estate, or Touring versions in BMW terminology, of the E34 and E60 generation M5, but it left the rather niche segment of the industry in 2010, seemingly never to return again. And perhaps even more surprisingly, there was never an official production M3 Touring until the current G81 M3 Touring was introduced!

What you see here, though, actually started as an April Fool’s joke last year, when BMW released digital images of what an M3 Touring race car could look like. It got so much attention and exposure that BMW apparently couldn’t resist building it, and here we are! Based on the M4 EVO GT3 platform, which BMW races across the globe, the company now takes the already spicy M3 Touring to the track, and it looks absolutely wild! Your eye is immediately drawn to that park-bench rear wing hanging out over the rear of the car, but that’s far from all there is to it.

The flagship M4 EVO GT3 race car, which was used as the starting point for this M3 Touring GT3, was introduced in 2025 as an updated version of the M4 GT3 and offers the latest racing technology by BMW. Homologated by the FIA for GT3 class racing, it’s campaigned in racing series like IMSA and WEC, and regularly makes podium appearances. Combined, the M4 GT3 and M4 EVO GT3 have won more than 80 races and amassed over a hundred 2nd and 3rd places through more than 400,000 kilometres of racing.

Developed over a period of 8 months, the M3 Touring GT3 is very close to the M4 EVO GT3 when it comes to performance. It does have a slightly longer wheelbase, but uses the same P58 twin-turbocharged 3.0-litre inline-six-cylinder engine that puts out up to 590bhp depending on restrictions. Torque output is 700Nm, and power is fed to the rear wheels only through a six-speed X-Trac transmission. Its body, though, is a whole different story. Pretty much every panel is specific to the M3 Touring GT3. Modifications include mounting the M4 EVO GT3’s rear wing further back and higher above the rear of the car to increase its aerodynamic efficiency, wider wheel arches, air intakes in the rear side windows, a new roof and tailgate structure and front and rear bumpers.

What’s also pretty cool about the M3 Touring GT3 is its livery. It’s not just a white-on-black paint job thrown on there for dramatic effect, but actually a reference to last year’s April Fool’s gag and the subsequent response to make it a reality. BMW has slapped “You Dreamed It, We Built It” on the doors and even added replies from people on various social media platforms to it. You can read comments like “If this is a joke, I’m gonna lose it”, “We NEEEEEED It” and “That. Is. Insane” all over the car. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves, and absolutely agree with every single comment! It is just the coolest thing BMW has done, ever!

For now, it’s a one-off, but it has made a smashing debut at the Nürburgring Langstrecken Series 2 race at the Nürburgring-Nordschleife held on March 21st this year. And although it was only one of two cars entered in the SP-X class, the other being a KTM X- Bow GTX, the M3 Touring GT3 was arguably the biggest attention-grabber other than Max Verstappen in the Red Bull-clad Mercedes AMG GT3 EVO that won overall (but later got disqualified for a breach of the tyre regulations). The 4-hour race can be considered a shakedown event for the M3 Touring GT3, as it’s said to return to the “Green Hell” for this year’s 24 Hours at the Nürburgring race, which is held between the 14th and 17th of April.

For more information, please visit BMWGroup.com.

Editorial Note: The information used and images portrayed in this article are sourced from and used with permission of BMW Group unless stated otherwise.