The separately opening rear glass on BMW’s 3 Series Touring has been a quiet little luxury since the E46 generation rolled out in 1999. Twenty-seven years later, the electric i3 Touring looks ready to kill it.
A new spy video captured near the Nürburgring shows the i3 Touring, codenamed NA1, in what appears to be near-production form. Camouflage still covers the front and rear fascias, but the overall shape is exposed. The roofline extends past the sedan’s profile into a proper wagon tail, and the slim taillights carry over from the i3 Sedan revealed earlier this year.
What it does not look like is a wagon with an independently opening rear window. The latest prototype shows no visible cut line separating the glass from the tailgate. BMW already dropped this feature from the larger 5 Series Touring, and the i3 appears to follow suit. For anyone who has ever popped that glass to toss in a bag of groceries without swinging the full hatch open in a tight parking garage, this is a functional loss dressed up as a design choice.
Under the skin, the i3 Touring rides on BMW’s Neue Klasse platform and should inherit the sedan’s battery and motor technology. The sedan posts a claimed 912 kilometers of range on the WLTP cycle, roughly 567 miles. The wagon will weigh more and push more air, so expect that number to shrink.
Inside, the cabin mirrors the sedan’s layout: a 17.9-inch central touchscreen, BMW’s Panoramic Vision head-up display projected across the base of the windshield, and a stripped-back dashboard that abandons the iDrive rotary controller for good. The wagon and sedan will be functionally identical from the B-pillar forward.
BMW confirmed the i3 Touring during the sedan’s premiere earlier this year, briefly flashing a silhouette at the end of the event. Production is slated for the Munich plant alongside the sedan, with manufacturing expected to begin in the second half of 2027.
The more interesting subplot involves what might park next to it on the assembly line. BMW is reportedly considering a combustion-powered 3 Series Touring, internally coded G51, built on the older CLAR architecture with gasoline and plug-in hybrid drivetrains. If approved, it would share much of the electric wagon’s exterior sheetmetal but run on entirely different bones underneath. Diesel, long the default powertrain for European wagon buyers, appears unlikely given its absence from the new 3 Series Sedan lineup.
That BMW is even contemplating two parallel 3 Series wagons tells you something about the company’s hedging strategy. The Neue Klasse platform is the future Munich has bet billions on, but the present still has customers who want a combustion engine and a long roof. Not building both risks losing buyers to Audi or Mercedes, neither of whom have shown any eagerness to abandon the segment.
BMW has not announced a reveal date for the i3 Touring or confirmed whether the G51 will reach production. What the spy footage makes plain is that the electric wagon is close to finished. The proportions are right, the surfacing looks resolved, and the prototype caught testing wears what appears to be an M Sport package.
Whether buyers will forgive the missing rear glass trick is another question entirely.
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