Article Summary
- The BMW M3 Touring 24H will compete in May at the 2026 Nürburgring 24 Hours in the SPX class.
- It's based on the M4 GT3 EVO but with a new carbon fiber-reinforced plastic body with faux rear doors.
- Development time: eight months.
When BMW teased a new race car last week, an M3 wagon was in the back of my mind. It was all wishful thinking at that point, as I wasn’t realistically expecting a track-ready Touring. Well, the Motorsport side went ahead and did it. Meet the one-off M3 Touring 24H, built for racing rather than as a showpiece.
It follows up on last year’s M3 Touring GT3 EVO, revealed for April Fools’ Day. This time around, it’s no joke. As the 24H name implies, it’ll compete later this year at the 24 Hours of Nürburgring. Those of us past a certain age will fondly remember racy wagons like the Volvo 850 from the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) during the 1990s, and it’s nice to see the recipe revived decades later.
Using the M4 GT3 EVO as the basis allowed BMW M Motorsport to accelerate development. However, it still needed to develop a new body in carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP). That also meant new windows and faux rear doors since there’s obviously no need for them. Additionally, the front doors are shorter, and the rear wing extends further back to improve aerodynamics and compensate for the wagon shape.
At the heart of the M3 Touring 24H is the P58 race engine, a 3.0-liter inline-six capable of developing up to 590 horsepower and 700 Newton-meters (516 pound-feet) of torque. Output is routed to the rear wheels through an X-trac six-speed sequential gearbox, echoing the M4 GT3 EVO. While the M4 road car also has a rear-wheel-drive version, the street-legal M3 Touring comes exclusively with xDrive. Now, there’s also a two-wheel-drive flavor, though only for racing.
Built by BMW M Motorsport in only eight months, the M3 Touring 24H is based on the M4 GT3 EVO. However, the wagon body makes it a full 200 millimeters (nearly 8 inches) longer and 32 mm (1.2 in) taller than the coupe. Other than that, the cars are identical, making the super wagon a true GT3-spec machine. Development started in September 2025, a month after the higher-ups approved the project.
The race car’s validation process commenced last month. Next weekend, it’ll hit the asphalt during the second round of the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie (NLS). The 24-hour endurance race will take place on May 16–17. Four BMW M works drivers will take turns behind the wheel: Jens Klingmann, Ugo de Wilde, Connor De Phillippi, and Neil Verhagen.
The M3 Touring race car is fielded by Schubert Motorsport, which also runs the #77 M4 GT3 EVO. The two won’t compete directly because the wagon will take part in the SPX class, whereas the coupe is battling in the SP9 class.
