Article Summary
- BMW privately told a small group of dealers at a recent US conference that more wagons might be coming, not as a public announcement
- A G51 3 Series Touring (2027) and the first-ever i3 Touring (NA1) are confirmed for global rollout; an M3 Touring ICE and M3 Electric Wagon (ZA1) are expected to follow
- The ZA1 is projected for 2028 and an ICE M3 Touring for 2029 at the earliest, with the G81 M3 Touring remaining the most petitioned-for BMW in America
Last May in Nashville, BMW signaled to a handful of dealers at a recent U.S. conference, in private conversations rather than any public announcement, that more wagons could be coming to America in the future. The timing isn’t a coincidence. Rumors point to the G99 M5 Touring’s sales success as the trigger, with BMW reportedly surprised by how strong demand turned out to be once the car actually landed here.
In March, Head of Product Management, Bernd Körber, also revealed the next 3 Series wagon is currently under consideration for the U.S. market. “We still have to make a decision whether we expand [availability to the U.S.]. We had Touring discussions with our product council in the U.S. for a long time, and we were very much positively surprised about the 5 Series Touring (our note: M5 Touring).”
What exactly “more wagons” means wasn’t spelled out. It could mean an M Wagon. It could mean a regular production mode, like a 3 Series Touring. BMW has already locked in two pieces of that puzzle regardless of what gets discussed at dealer conferences: a new 3 Series Touring with an ICE powertrain, internally coded G51 and expected around 2027, and the first i3 Touring ever built, the NA1.
Will An M3 Touring Come To America?
Both of those are BMW AG products, which is the key point here. Core BMW AG vehicles tend to spawn M variants eventually, and that’s exactly the pattern we expect to repeat with the next M3. We’re expecting both an M3 Touring with a combustion engine and an M3 Electric Wagon, the ZA1, to exist as real cars. The open question is which one, if either, actually gets allocated to the U.S.
Given the way American buyers have been pulling back from EVs relative to a couple of years ago, we’d bet on the combustion M3 Touring over the ZA1 if BMW only sends one. That’s not the same as saying the door is shut on an electric wagon here. BMW has surprised us before, and the M5 Touring situation is proof that demand signals can move faster than product planners expect. The ZA1 is allegedly on track for 2028, while an ICE M3 Touring isn’t expected until 2029 at the earliest, which means if you’re hoping to cross-shop a combustion M3 wagon against anything else in the showroom, you’ve got a few years of waiting left regardless of which side of the powertrain debate you’re on.
None of this happens without a reason. The G81 M3 Touring is arguably the single most requested car among BMW enthusiasts in this country right now, to the point that fans have organized petitions with signature counts in the tens of thousands aimed squarely at convincing BMW to bring it over. We’ve added our own pressure too, publicly calling out BMW M for skipping the G81 here, and privately, in conversations with executives that didn’t make it into print.
Whether any of that actually moves the needle is impossible to say with certainty. But between the dealer conference comments, the M5 Touring’s sales numbers, and the volume of people who’ve made their preference known, the odds of an M3 wagon eventually reaching America look better than they have in years.
