In the lead-up to the M3 Touring’s world premiere back in June 2022, BMW showed a camouflaged prototype lapping the Nürburgring in 7 minutes and 30.3 seconds. The super wagon is now out and about, so Sport Auto’s test driver decided to take the G81 for a spin around the challenging Green Hell. Long story short, Christian Gebhardt managed to get pretty close to the official lap time by crossing the finish line in 7:34.3.
Painted in the striking Sao Paulo Yellow color, the M3 Touring was nearly as fast as the second-generation M2 G87, which has an official lap time of 7:33.9. That’s mighty impressive for a wagon, but then again, the long-roof M3 is no ordinary grocery-getter. BMW has built other M cars that are significantly faster around the Nordschleife, including the M3 CS (7:28.760) and the M4 CSL (7:18.137). Coming in 2024, the M4 CS will be crowned as the fastest BMW road car at the famous German track. Keep in mind these times were clocked over the shorter 20.6-kilometer configuration of the circuit rather than the full 20.8-km distance.
It’s worth noting that the M3 Touring is already the fastest production wagon around the Nürburgring. However, BMW could try to shave off seconds with the rumored CS variant believed to land in 2025 with more power. In the meantime, we’re going to witness the return of the M5 Touring in 2024, and perhaps the M division will want to do a hot lap of the ‘Ring with the speedy wagon internally codenamed G99.
Even though the M3 G81 has only been around for a little over a year, BMW is already working on a Life Cycle Impulse to align the potent family car with the upcoming changes planned for the M3 Sedan LCI. Later this decade, a fully electric variant is expected to join the lineup but on the Neue Klasse platform rather than CLAR. It’ll be interesting to see whether the luxury brand will still be interested in Nürburgring lap times in the new era of electric M cars, which could begin as early as 2027 with an M3 Sedan EV.
Source: Sport Auto / YouTube
