BMW muscles in on rival territory with M3 wagon

Luxury brand goes after new ground with a practical spin on its performance car benchmark

BMW has unveiled a wagon-bodied version of the M3.

BMW has unveiled its much-anticipated M3 Touring, a wagon-bodied version of the latest M3 sedan.

The first long-roofed M3 represents good news for enthusiasts who want to blend space with pace.

BMW’s M3 is available in wagon form for the first time.

But it’s bad news for performance car arch-rivals at Audi and Mercedes-AMG, which have had little competition for the RS4 Avant and C63 Estate.

Mercedes has discontinued the C63 wagon for now, leaving the Audi as a key rival to BMW’s new contender.

The car shares its hardware with the M3 Competition xDrive sedan.

Like Audi’s established favourite, the M3 Touring combines a turbocharged six-cylinder engine with an eight-speed automatic transmission and all-wheel-drive – you can’t have it with the six-speed manual gearbox or rear-drive layout of the cheaper sedan.

The 375kW, 650Nm 3.0-litre engine is capable of sending the wagon to 100km/h in just 3.6 seconds.

BMW says the Touring arrives locally next year.

It also makes the M3 about 10 seconds faster around Germany’s Nurburgring Nordschleife than the larger Mercedes-AMG E63 and its 450kW V8.

BMW says the Touring is tuned for a slightly more comfortable ride than the sharper sedan and coupe.

Like the sedan, it can be specified with hard-core carbon seats.

It also gets an updated interior with a curved 14.9-inch display borrowed from the i4 electric car, along with a customisable 12.3-inch digital display.

Enormous brakes and a multi-stage stability control system are essentially carried over from the four-door, as is a special drift mode that gives a star rating to sideways efforts.

BMW has not announced pricing for the new model.

Lightweight carbon-fibre front seats are on the optional extras list, as are carbon ceramic brakes.

The new M3 Touring arrives in Australia next year, where it should be priced a little above the all-wheel-drive M3 Sedan priced from $160,900 plus on-road costs.