It’s been a long time since BMW M made a wagon. The last-even BMW M product to have a wagon body style was the E61 M5 Touring. It was a good car and one that had a brilliant engine. However, despite all of that brilliance it never sold as well as BMW wouldn’t have liked. Now, fast forward to today, it seems there’s a new wagon game in town—the G81 BMW M3 Touring.
In this new video from DriveTribe, they put Ben Collins, the former Stig on Top Gear, in a BMW M3 Touring to do a few laps of the Nürburgring grand prix circuit. It’s a massively different experience, jumping into the E61 M5 Touring and then jumping into the new M3. The former is bigger, heavier, and less reliable. However, it does have a redline over 8,000 rpm and it makes a killer noise. So it has that going for it.
However, jumping into the G80 BMW M3 must have been an eye opening experience to say the least. Not only is it quicker, while using fewer cylinders, but it’s far sharper and better balanced. Collins nots how well-balanced the new M3 is and praises its adjustability. And, of course, he does big, smokey skids. That’s just what you have to do when you have an M3 on track.
Collins also puts it through what he calls the “Apple Test.” It was a test they used to do on Top Gear, behind the scenes. Jeremy Clarkson would put an apple at the apex of a corner and Collins would have to drift through the corner and hit the apple, mid-slide. Doing so proves a car’s agility, precision, balance, predictability, and power. Was Collins able to hit the apple with the BMW M3 Touring? Check the video out to find out.
