On April 1, 2025, BMW shared on social media some images of a BMW M3 Touring—a wagon variant of the M3 we don’t get here in North America—turned into a race car. The M3 Touring was already pretty cool as a road car, and in racing form, with new bodywork, a cage, and a huge rear wing, it looked even cooler. Unsurprisingly, it whipped the internet into a frenzy, with people begging BMW to make the car a reality.
As it turns out, the car was real. BMW snagged a production M3 Touring off the assembly line and gave it a bunch of mods to make it look like a real race car, just to drive home the joke. The car wasn’t actually homologated for racing, but it looked the part, which is what mattered for the social media posts.
Most people, including myself, assumed this would be the end of the M3 Touring GT3 Evo, and that the car would be tucked into a museum or storage for the foreseeable future. Except that’s not what happened. Response to the April Fool’s posts was so great that BMW decided to build a real, homologated, fully race-ready version of the M3 Touring, and plans to race it at the Nürburgring.
Too Popular To Ignore
Since the launch of the M3 Touring in 2022, BMW says it has been considering building a track version to pair with the M4 GT3 EVO, which has been racing globally since 2020. It was the huge reaction from the fans that pushed the team to actually commit. From the press release:
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.
Inspired by this success, the previously conceived plans to realise a racing version of the BMW M3 Touring became concrete in the summer of 2025.
The company says it took eight months to develop the car, named the BMW M3 Touring 24H. It uses the base structure of the wagon, but the drivetrain and suspension setup from the M4 GT3 Evo. That means a 3.0-liter P58 twin-turbo straight-six making 590 horsepower, connected to the rear wheels via a six-speed sequential gearbox from Xtrac.
The M3 Touring 24H is nearly eight inches longer than the M4, due to its extra doors, which means it has its own unique bodywork. That includes some widebody fenders and an absolutely gargantuan rear wing—far bigger and taller than the unit found on that original April Fool’s car. That extra wing height means it’s 1.25 inches taller than the M4. There’s no word on weight differences, though it’s very likely the Touring is heavier than the M4, too, because it’s just a physically larger vehicle.
Goin’ Racin
The BMW M3 Touring 24H is named that way because it’s going to compete at the Nürburgring 24, a day-long endurance race at the iconic 144-turn German circuit, in May. But that’s not the only race you’ll be able to see it compete. BMW says that in the lead-up to the N24, it’s going to field the car in the second round of the NLS championship this weekend and the Nürburgring 24 qualifying race in mid-April, both of which also take place at the same circuit.
For those first two races, the BMW M3 Touring 24H will be wearing the livery you see here, which is just a selection of comments pulled from the original April Fools’ joke post published last year. For the actual N24, the car will get “another special livery,” according to BMW.
The car is competing in the ‘Ring’s SPX class, which means it won’t be competing directly with its siblings in the GT3 category. Nonetheless, Jens Klingmann, one of the car’s drivers, thinks it’ll still be pretty quick. From the release:
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.
No matter how it performs, I’m glad BMW followed through on this thing. Wagons turned into race cars don’t make much sense, considering they’re usually bigger, heavier, and less aerodynamically effective than their sedan or coupe counterparts. So when one becomes a reality, it’s worth celebrating. I know which car I’ll be rooting for in May.
Top graphic image: BMW
I am loving all this coverage of things going down at the N24 this year.
And now I know the car I’ll be rooting for during the race.
This thing is awesome in so many different ways!
I would have loved a toy of this as a kid! Room to stuff things inside, and that wing would make a great handle while zooming it along the floor.
First BMW in a while that I’ve really really liked the look of.
Finally, BMW doing something that we actually like. I love everything about this, especially the livery!