It’s been a few weeks since the BMW M3 Touring made its official debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. We were in attendance and were able to even get a ride along in the BMW M4 CSL during the iconic Goodwood hill climb. However, the car we didn’t get a ride in the M3 Touring. Thankfully, our buddy Joe Achilles got a ride along in the long-roof M3, which you can see in this new video.
If you’ve driven, or been in, the new BMW M3 Competition xDrive, then you probably have a really good idea of what the M3 Touring is like. That’s because the Touring is essentially just an M3 Competition xDrive with a longer roof. So it gets the same 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged inline-six engine, eight-speed automatic, and all-wheel drive system as its sedan sibling. It also gets the same 503 horsepower and 479 lb-ft of torque. The M3 Touring should be a tick or two slower to 60 mph, thanks to its added weight but, honestly, that slight performance downgrade is worth the added practicality.
Achilles was lucky to get a ride in the M3 Touring because the driver was Frank Weishar, a BMW factory driver and part of the development team for the M3 Touring. Not only does he know the car like the back of its hand, and how it handles at the limit, but he’s also a genuine madman and went absolute full-send in the M3 Touring in rear-wheel drive mode, with traction control turned all the way off.
Weishar had no reservations about pushing the M3 Touring as hard as possible with Achilles in the car and even got it sideways, into the grass, and clipped one of the hill climbs protective hay bales with the back end, which was absolutely hilarious. Achilles must have had the time of his life during that ride and I’m absolutely jealous.
