The M5 Touring is splitting sales nearly 50/50 with the sedan in the United States. That number alone is remarkable for a market that supposedly hates wagons.
BMW’s Michael Keller, the brand’s North American VP of product management, confirmed the demand in a recent interview with Bimmerlife.com. He also acknowledged something even more interesting: customers have been petitioning BMW to bring the M3 Touring stateside.
“We are seeing continuous demand,” Keller said. “There is momentum in the market.”
That’s careful corporate language, but coming from a company that just built a manual-only M3 CS exclusively for North America based on customer outcry, it carries weight. The M3 CS Handschalter — with its titanium exhaust, carbon-ceramic brakes, and three-pedal setup — exists because Americans asked loudly enough. BMW listened once. The question is whether they’ll do it again.
Keller was quick to temper expectations, calling the wagon interest an “indication for further internal discussion” rather than a trend BMW intends to chase. But he didn’t shut the door. “We will look into Touring concepts where it makes sense for the U.S. market,” he said, “because at the moment we are quite happy with the M5.”
The M5 Touring’s near-parity with its sedan sibling demolishes the old Detroit axiom that Americans won’t buy long-roofs. Mercedes-AMG has known this for years, quietly moving E63 wagons to enthusiasts who would rather have cargo space than a coupe roofline. Audi’s RS6 Avant landed here to genuine enthusiasm.
BMW arriving late to the party with the M5 Touring and immediately seeing those take rates suggests the appetite was always there — the product just wasn’t.
An M3 Touring would slot into different territory. It’s smaller, lighter, and more directly competitive with the compact performance segment where crossovers like BMW’s own X3 M have been hoovering up buyers. The calculus is simple: if enough of those X3 M customers would cross-shop a proper M3 wagon, the business case writes itself.
Nobody should expect a manual M3 Touring. BMW’s willingness to bend has limits, and the Handschalter was already a one-time magic trick. But an automatic M3 Touring with xDrive, positioned against the next Audi RS4 Avant and whatever AMG does with the next C63 wagon, would fill a gap that BMW has left open for decades in this market.
Mainstream long-roofs are functionally dead in America, victims of the crossover tsunami that swept through showrooms a decade ago. The closest thing arriving soon is Audi’s new Allroad, which is more of a lifted compromise than a genuine wagon play.
But the performance tier operates by different rules. These aren’t volume plays. They’re halo products, brand builders, the cars that show up on bedroom posters and internet forums.
Munich’s product planners are famously methodical. They don’t chase rumors or internet petitions without spreadsheets to back them up. The M5 Touring’s take rate just handed them a very convincing spreadsheet.
Whether that translates into an M3 Touring on American soil depends on how seriously BMW wants to press its advantage in a niche that competitors have already validated. The demand is real. The only question left is whether BMW’s internal discussions move faster than the current 3 Series lifecycle.
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