It is a strange quirk of fate that the station wagon has morphed from mass-market family transport into something far more esoteric (at least here in the US, a market that once embraced the form factor like no other). Now, wagons come in two flavors. There’s the “slightly lifted with some extra protective cladding” kind, designed with forest roads in mind but equally useful if you’re surrounded by people who park by sense of smell. The other variety is the one that thinks it’s really a supercar, with at least 600 hp (447 kW) and the ability to test if the kids and family dog get nauseous when subjected to high lateral Gs.
Even then, the US misses out. BMW will sell us an M5 Touring here, a plug-in hybrid wagon with 717 hp (535 kW), but it has no plans to bring over the smaller, (much) lighter M3 Touring, no matter how much we plead. That’s a shame, as the M3 Touring is about to become even cooler: BMW is entering one in the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie, which races at the infamous racetrack in the Eifel Mountains.
The idea started as an April Fool’s joke last year, but the overwhelmingly positive reaction from fans worked something loose, and someone in Munich signed off on a budget to make a station wagon version of its GT3 race car (the M4 GT3 EVO). It makes its NLS debut next week, with the highlight of the program being the Nürburgring 24H in mid-May. That race will also be contested by one Max Verstappen on a weekend away from F1.
The choice of NLS to campaign the car is not at all accidental. The M3 Touring 24H might have mostly the same technical specs as the GT3 car—it’s a bit longer, and the rear wing is a little higher—GT3 regulations require, among other things, that the starting point be a two-door coupe, not a four-door sedan or five-door wagon. So an entry at Le Mans, Daytona, or the Spa 24 would all be impossible.
But the NLS has multiple classes, from low-powered entries similar to the Golf GTI I used to race all the way up to GT3s, plus an exhibition class called SPX for stuff that doesn’t quite fit in elsewhere. It’s this latter class that the M3 Touring 24H will enter, being driven by Jens Klingmann, Ugo de Wilde, and two American BMW factory drivers, Connor De Phillippi and Neil Verhagen.
“A project like the BMW M3 Touring 24H has never existed at BMW M Motorsport before,” said Andreas Roos, head of BMW M Motorsport. “Many thanks to everyone who put their heart and soul into this unique car and brought it to life. I am thrilled—and at the same time, I am certain that our fans, who are never closer to us than at our second home on the Nürburgring, will be just as excited. I promise all fans a great show and look forward to an event of superlatives.”
Any 24-hour race is hard, and a 24-hour race at one of the world’s most challenging racetracks is so much harder. But regardless of where the M3 Touring 24H finishes, it will find itself among a very select group of racing station wagons. The most famous, as some of you may be shouting at your screens, was the Volvo 850 Estate that Volvo UK entered into the British Touring Car Championship in 1994.
Back then, the BTCC was just entering its purple patch as the world’s most competitive touring car series, with outsized budgets and technology that would rival F1. The Volvo wagon was quick enough not to embarrass itself and became a fan favorite thanks to its sheer outlandishness, though the following year, it was replaced by an 850 sedan after the BTCC changed some aero rules.
As for the N24, if you’re a motorsports fan, it’s worth attending at least once, as hundreds of thousands of German enthusiasts congregate to drink beer and build viewing platforms in the forests that surround the nearly 16 miles (25.4 km) of race track. Sadly, while the organizers are rather permissive about what they’ll let in, they turned down an application from Rauh Racing to enter a Renault Twingo. Oh well, we’ll have to make do with the M3 Touring 24H.
