About this time last year, a press release from BMW plopped into our inbox (can an email 'plop'? Never mind…). It promised us a BMW M3 Touring GT3 Evo estate racing car, clearly inspired by the wonderful Volvo 850 T5 BTCC racing estate from the early 1990s, complete with M-Sport colour scheme and a towering goose-neck rear wing.
However, having checked (a) our calendars and (b) BMW's likely retained sanity levels, we swifty, sadly, and correctly concluded that this was an April Fools gag and that the awesome racing estate was a mere piece of Photoshop legerdemain.
But…?
But, indeed. But that was 2025. Now we are in 2026, and fantasy has become a glorious 3D reality. BMW has actually, really built a racing version of its M3 Touring high-performance estate car, called the BMW M3 Touring 24H, and it's going to race in the Nürburgring 24hrs this year(!).
*Insert GIF of Steve Carell shouting 'it's happening' here!*
Quite. It turns out that the idea of a possible M3 Touring racer had originally been cooked up when the road-going five-door was launched back in 2022, but no-one took it very seriously - presumably beyond whatever the German is for 'imagine how awesome that would be' (it turns out to be 'Stell dir vor, wie genial das wäre!') before the engineers went back to their day jobs.
Last year's joke press release, though, awakened something in Munich, and the M3 Touring 24H is the fabulous result. Essentially, this is a car created by the fans, as BMW says: "The response from fans and the media to this post was overwhelming. It reached more than one million users and generated over 1.6 million views. Engagement on the posts was also many times higher than the usual figures for BMW M Motorsport's social media channels.” Indeed, the M3 Touring 24H's display paint scheme actually features real quotes from various fans, most of which are along the lines of 'build it, build it now please.' The pain scheme will change again for the actual Nürburgring 24 hours race.
What are the technical specs?
The M3 Touring 24H uses the same basic set of underpinnings as BMW's successful 24hrs M4 coupe racer, the M4 GT3 Evo. The body, though, is some 200mm longer, and with that massive rear wing, it's 32mm higher at the back too. As with the coupe, it will run on bespoke Yokohama racing tyres, something that prompted Takayoshi Omae, Deputy Head of Consumer Tyre Product & Marketing Planning at Yokohama, to say: "We are deeply honoured to partner with BMW M Motorsport as an official tyre partner for this exclusive programme. This collaboration marks a historic milestone in Yokohama's motorsport history, and our participation in the Nürburgring 24 Hours fills us with immense pride and anticipation. Together with BMW M Motorsport, a global premium brand defined by visionary engineering and an unwavering competitive spirit, Yokohama looks forward to pushing the boundaries of what is possible on the Nordschleife, driven by our shared pursuit of excellence.” Everyone's a fan where this car is concerned…
Who's going to drive the M3 Touring 24H?
BMW will dip into its regular roster of works racers for the Touring 24H, and the squad will be made up of Germany's Jens Klingmann, Ugo de Wilde from Belgium, and Connor De Phillippi and Neil Verhagen, both from the USA.
Andreas Roos, head of BMW M Motorsport, said: "A project like the BMW M3 Touring 24H has never existed at BMW M Motorsport before. 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.”
Jens Klingmann: "This is truly a unique project, and I am absolutely delighted to be a part of it. The fact that we took our fans' reactions to an April Fools' joke as an opportunity to actually make the BMW M3 Touring 24H a reality speaks to our closeness to our community and our enthusiasm for motorsport. It has to be said clearly that the car may have started as an April Fools' joke, but it has become an absolutely top-class and competitive race car. Our goal is to put on a great show for the spectators at the Nürburgring and to finish the race as far up front as possible. I am convinced that we can achieve a top result.”
When can I see this awesome thing in action?
The BMW M3 Touring 24H will get its first race outing in the regular Nürburgring Langstrecken Serie (NLS) event on 17 and 18 May, as a way of limbering up for the real deal event, the ADAC-Ravenol Nürburgring 24hrs on 19-22 June.