BMW M3 Touring Competition – The Family Supercar

Handsome looking inside and out, you can tell this M3 Touring Competition means business, yet it’s hard to tell just how good it is until you drive it. The interior is very similar to the M4, featuring tons of carbon and leather and low-reflective surfaces. Both the driver and passenger seats offer heating and ventilation, plus lumbar control, and a lovely little lit M3 badge to remind you what you’re driving, should you forget. The steering wheel is quite something, with the familiar M1 and M2 buttons reminding you about the high performance available. Carbon inserts and a well-thought-out layout make for an easy-to-use design.

This Touring edition, BMW’s word for wagon, is a particularly functional, practical, and useful car. The back seats are as comfortable as the front, and like the front, offer plenty of headroom. The back seats fold down with a single click, presenting a well-sized load space complete with fastenings scattered around to make life easy.

 

 

Outside it looks too grumpy to be called beautiful; it’s more of a handsome piece of sculpture, including stunning 20/21 rims only available on the Competition version. The bonnet is long to accommodate the three-liter straight-six, and this flows into the oversized grille, which makes sense when you see the car, it’s menacing. The paint on this car was unique; in many conditions, it looks grey, but as you get closer, it looks dark charcoal grey, almost black. You then see it’s metallic, and if the sun comes out, the paint radiates with an almost golden glow.

If there’s one engine that BMW makes better than anyone else, it’s a straight-six, and this sports the same configuration as the M4. This means it’s got a searing 390 kilowatts, with 650 Newton meters torque that will take you from 0 to 100 in the supercar time of 3.6 seconds. On comfortable normal mode you tweak settings individually, or the programmable engine mode buttons that enable adjudtment of every aspect of performance. Like it’s 2 door sibling, this is a four-wheel drive with excellent traction and stability control. It’s also special in that you can put it in two-wheel drive mode if you want to send all the power to the rear wheels alone; that’s a wild amount of fun, but for most drivers, probably not as quick as using all four Michelin paws.

 

 

Normal mode is great for getting places with a high level of compliance, and it murmurs along nicely. But once you get to the hill sections, punch one of the red fun-buttons for eye-opening fun. The suspension is firm on all settings, but it all makes sense once you get to the B-roads. It hunkers down as it rips through any corner at any speed. In most cars I can find the limit of traction, but not this, it’s eye-wateringly sticky thanks to great rubber and natural mechanical grip. Short of going to a track, I don’t know what the limit could possibly be.

I want a car for multiple duties. Something that’s good for packing the kids and luggage for a summer holiday, plus one that delivers entertainment when you’re alone and let loose on the back roads. This is it. This is a practical family supercar wagon. And it’s not just me that appreciates it. Everyone liked it. My dads pupils dilated – he knew its potential. My mom announced it looked like a ‘good family car’, and it was probably her favourite. It’s a car without compromise, one of the best I’ve ever driven.