The BMW M350 xDrive sedan has been public for exactly one day, and someone has already stretched it into a wagon. Digital artist Theottle rendered the G51 3 Series Touring in Fire Red with quad exhaust tips and M-style mirrors. The result looks less like speculation than a preview of a decision BMW still hasn’t made.
BMW’s internal deliberations over bringing the combustion Touring back to the US have been running for more than a year. Sources familiar with the matter put the odds at roughly 50-50, and that number hasn’t budged.
The last time Americans could buy a 3 Series wagon was 2019, when the F31 Sports Wagon quietly exited the lineup. BMW skipped the G21 Touring entirely for North America. The G81 M3 Touring, one of the most requested BMWs of the past decade, never crossed the Atlantic either.
What shifted the conversation was the M5 Touring. BMW product chief Bernd Körber told BMWBLOG earlier this year that the company was “very much positively surprised” by M5 Touring sales, and that US interest in wagons is driven by something different from European demand. In Europe, it’s about carrying luggage to the Alps. In America, Körber said bluntly, “It’s purely the shape.”
That distinction matters when you’re building a business case for a low-volume car in a market that overwhelmingly buys SUVs. If the G51 does land stateside, BMW would likely bring only the M350 xDrive variant. No 330 wagon, no stripped base model, just the range-topping inline-six with 437 horsepower, 428 pound-feet, xDrive, adaptive M suspension, and a 3.9-second sprint to 60.
Körber himself said at a 2025 event that he would “never take the mass-market approach” with US Tourings and would “always offer the top engine.”
A single trim simplifies the math on US certification and crash testing, expenses that sink profitability fast on cars that might sell a few thousand units a year. The M350 sedan starts at $65,900 before destination. An M350 Touring would likely land somewhere near $70,000, roughly half the price of the M5 Touring and within reach of enthusiasts who spent years lobbying for the M3 wagon.
The production plan is taking shape. BMW will build the i3 Touring at its Munich plant alongside the electric i3 sedan. The combustion G51 heads to Dingolfing, where the G50 sedan enters production this November, with the wagon following in the second half of 2027.
Europe gets the full engine spread: four-cylinder 318 and 320 models, a 330e plug-in hybrid, and the M350. No diesels, a loss that would have been unthinkable five years ago in a segment where fleet buyers once kept the order books full. Many of those customers now spec plug-in hybrids or have gone electric entirely.
BMW’s path to the Touring has been anything but linear in 2026. Early in the year, the company appeared ready to replace the outgoing G21 exclusively with the electric i3 Touring. Then CEO Oliver Zipse teased a “3 Series” Touring silhouette at the i3 sedan launch in March, pointedly avoiding the “i3” badge, and Körber called it “technology-open.” By May, the combustion wagon was confirmed internally.
There is a longer play here too. BMWBLOG has reported the next M3 Touring, codenamed G88, will ride on the G51 platform and could arrive in late 2028 or 2029. BMW has acknowledged it is considering that car for the US. Selling the M350 Touring first would create a proof of concept, a sales record that either justifies the M3 wagon or kills it.
A decision from Munich could come any time before the G51’s debut next year. The clock is running, and for the first time in half a decade, the odds aren’t zero.
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