There has never been an official BMW M3 Touring, until now. BMW has confirmed that the sixth-generation M3 lineup will include a five-door for the very first time.

The car isn’t scheduled to be revealed in its final form until late 2022, but BMW has taken the unusual-but-welcome move of confirming the car’s existence early to quell speculation.

2022 BMW M3 Touring spied leaving BMW factory.

Full details on the 2021 BMW M4 and M3 models

Good news for Aussie wagon fans is BMW Australia’s statement: “BMW Australia plans to introduce the M3 Touring and will advise arrival timing closer to the launch date.”

While the G81 M3 Touring will be the first full production model, BMW has flirted with the idea before, producing a production-ready prototype for the E46 generation to test the validity of the idea.

BMW E46 M3 Touring driving.

BMW says “speculation on engine and performance is quite welcome” but we don’t have to speculate too much given the 2021 G80 M3 and G82 M4 models have now been publicly revealed.

BMW M3 S58 engine.

We’d expect the 2022 BMW M3 Touring to be available exclusively with all-wheel drive and the automatic gearbox to reduce model and production complexity, but then the model’s existence itself was a surprise, even to BMW!

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BMW M boss Markus Flasch told Australian media: “This car wasn’t planned, our engineering team made it happen. They surprised me on a Monday morning and then there were not too many questions to be asked and we would make the decision to bring this model forward.”

2022 BMW G81 M3 Touring prototype spied.

“We had an opportunity that was quite obvious and we saw a huge demand in the market. we saw that high performance wagons are popular in certain areas of the world and therefore we took the opportunity and the car just looks so stunning.”

BMW M3 Touring carbon-ceramic brakes.

We’ll bring you further details on the 2022 BMW M3 Touring closer to its release date.