The Secret BMW E46 M3 Touring

In conjunction with the 30th anniversary of the M3, BMW reveals a few secret, one-off M3 ideas that were actually made, but never got green-lighted for market sales. Among the four highly intriguing model variants revealed, there was one that really stood out: the E46 M3 Touring.

The E46 M3 Touring is a car that enthusiasts have been wanting BMW to build for the longest time. When it was revealed that BMW actually made one of these, many gasps were heard. A lot of people felt sad that this wasn’t sold in the market because it was actually a great idea. It actually had a demand in the market and who knows how well it could have sold if it was actually launched to production. However, this M3 Touring served entirely in-house purposes.

“This prototype allowed us to show that, from a purely technical standpoint at least, it was possible to integrate an M3 Touring into the ongoing production of the standard BMW 3 Series Touring with very little difficulty,” explains head of vehicle prototype building and workshops at BMW M Division and an employee at the company for more than 40 years.

“One important thing we needed to demonstrate was that the rear doors of the standard production model could be reworked to adapt them to the rear wheel arches without the need for new and expensive tools.” Once it had passed through the assembly line, the M3 Touring required only minimal manual follow-up work to fit the M-specific add-on parts and interior details, for example.

The secret car was powered by a naturally-aspirated six-cylinder in-line engine delivering 252 kW/343 hp from its 3,246 cc and peak torque of 365 Newton meters (269 lb-ft).

Unfortunately, the E46 M3 never saw the light of day. It would have been one of the hottest sports wagons ever built though!