BMW has announced its first fully-official version of the M3 high-performance machine in a station wagon version. 

The new car, which has a very fiddly name of BMW M3 Competition Touring with M xDrive will commence production at the end of this year.

It will be available in Singapore, but in 'limited numbers' according to BMW Asia (we explain why later on in the story), and it looks set to give the Audi RS 4 Avant and Mercedes-AMG C 63 Estate a hard time. 

How much will it cost? Since a BMW M3 Competition currently rings in the register at $535,888 with COE, a slight premium to around $550k-plus is our guess.

But wait, you say, hasn't BMW made an M3 Touring before? The answer is, officially and surprisingly, no.

Cursory Googling will show that enthusiasts have made homebrew conversions of various generations' of 3 Series Touring, including from the E36, E46, and E92 generations, but these are of course not official cars.

BMW M itself has made station wagons before — but not M3s, only M5s. Notably the very first M wagon in the E34, and later on in the V10-powered E61, which was a Europe-only LHD model.  

Touring Wagon M-aster

There are some key differences over the standard four-door BMW M3 Competition sedan. The basic footprint and wheelbase remains the same, at around 4.79m long x 1.90m wide x 1.43m tall with a 2.86m wheelbase. 

Visually the M3 Touring looks as you'd expect: It's a nitro-ed up version of the regular 3 Series Touring with the sportier 'tall kidney grille' seen on the 4 Series, big vents and bulging fenders, aggro aero kit, quad tailpipes and all. 

The backwards slope of the rear end of the car avoids the square look of some wagons, so accordingly the boot space increase is modest. 

It's 500-litres, up from 480-litres of the sedan. A 20-litre increase doesn't sound particularly impressive, but the benefit is the shape of the load space and the rear hatchback door, which will make loading things far easier. 

Additionally, the seats fold down (40/20/40) to deliver 1,510-litres of space in that configuration. In the Touring there are also seat folding latches accessible from the boot, and the glass of the rear hatch opens as a door itself too.  

Another key difference of the M3 Touring is that since it's newer than the M3 Competition, it receives the latest digital updates as seen on the BMW iX and BMW i4.

This is the BMW widescreen interior consisting of a 12.3-inch driver's display, 14.9-inch touchscreen infotainment system, and latest BMW OS 8. 

Performance 

Obviously, the boot section adds extra space, and extra weight, but the Touring also comes with xDrive all-wheel drive as standard (there's an M3 Competition xDrive sedan too).

As a result, the Touring is 1,940kg compared to 1,805kg (with driver) of the regular rear-wheel drive M3 Competition, and 1,860kg of the M3 Competition xDrive sedan. 

The drivetrain is carried over from the BMW M3 Competition xDrive sedan entirely, namely a 3.0-litre biturbo inline six with 510hp and 650Nm of torque, with an eight-speed automatic gearbox, and all-wheel drive. 

Like that car, the AWD system is a little different from your standard xDrive — there's normal all-wheel drive, dynamic all-wheel drive which delivers more torque rearward for drifti-er, pointier handling, and full rear-wheel drive mode. 

The suspension setup is adaptive, with M tuning obviously, and the same uprated brakes. BMW M has also kept the unique wheel size of the M3 — 19-inches on the front and 20-inches on the rear. 

Despite the weight bump, the car actually accelerates quite a bit faster than the RWD M3 Comp, 0-100km/h taking 3.6 seconds for the Touring, and 3.9 seconds for the latter.

The M3 sedan with xDrive does it in 3.5 seconds, if you're wondering. Top speed is 250km/h limited, or 280km/h unlimited, which is 10km/h less than the sedan. 

With extra weight, a wagon bodystyle, and all-wheel drive we think the car will behave more like a faster M340i xDrive than the current M3 Comp, but only a test drive will answer that definitively.

Why the M3 Touring is extra special 

Given how limited-edition M cars such as the M4 CSL and M2 CS have sold like Hello Kitty dolls in the past (that is to say, near-violence inducing queues form), we expect the M3 Touring to sell out in Singapore. 

Officially, it it not a limited-edition model, but its production will not be extended worldwide like regular M cars.

BMW M itself says that besides Germany and the UK as prime markets, "sales of the new model will be concentrated primarily in Switzerland, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Japan."

In other words, the car is aimed at Car Otaku markets (car enthusiasts) who are deeply steeped in the Cult of the Wagon, so places like the USA will not receive it.

Naturally if the car is a big success, BMW might expand production, but given this is the first time the M3 has gone waggin', we think the M3 Touring could have collectors' value. Or at least much more value than a JPG that has meta information which proclaims 'this is mine'. In other words, an M3T is more powerful than an NFT.

ALSO READ: Behold, BMW finally gives us an estate version of the M3

This article was first published in CarBuyer.