The BMW M3 Touring is easily the most exciting BMW on sale right now, even more so than the M4 CSL. Sure, the CSL is great but fans haven’t been waiting literal decades for it. The M3 Touring is the car the fans have wanted and still do. So, to give fans a playful little nod to the brand’s heritage, it added a small but fun easter egg to one of the infotainment screens. In a recent Instagram story from Chris Harris, he shows off the tire pressure screen and the car depicted isn’t an M3 Touring but a BMW M1.
Admittedly, I’m not sure if all iDrive 8-equipped M cars have this but the M3 Touring most certainly does. On the screen, you can see a top-down view of the BMW M1, with its iconic mid-engine design, wedge-shape, rear louvers, and hood scoops. It’s clearly a BMW M1, which is very cool to see.
What’s fun about that is BMW fans have also been begging for a BMW M1 replacement. In fact, BMW fans have been asking for that for longer than they’ve been asking for an M3 Touring. The iconic mid-engine supercar was very short lived but it left a lasting impact on fans of the brand. So to see it honored in a car that fans have also long been yearning for is kinda neat. Is that BMW saying that an M1 might be on the way in the future? Probably not. But it’s cool to see a little nod to one of the all-time great BMWs.
The M3 Touring is a great car in its own right. If you check out Harris’ Instagram posts, he’s been praising it quite a bit, along with sliding it around a track. According to him, it’s among the best daily drivers on the market and it’s hard to disagree. We haven’t driven it yet, with us being the deprived Yanks we are, however it’s not difficult to imagine. The G80 M3 Competition xDrive is already a sensational overall package. Now just add a longer roof, a bigger trunk, and even better looks. How could it be anything other than fantastic?
Maybe with all of the praise that it gets, BMW will realize that fans really will buy these very special cars they’ve been asking for. Maybe that means more future M3 Touring models and maybe that means the BMW M1 won’t just be a cute easter egg in another car but an actual production car somewhere down the line.