Almost Half Of BMW M3 Buyers Are Choosing A Touring

It took a long time for a BMW M3 Touring to arrive. 36 years, in fact. However, when it finally arrived as the G81, there was wonder if this was just a motoring journalist’s ultimate fantasy turned into reality and if anyone would actually buy one. The stats are in and, happy to report, yes they have. And a lot of them.

Figures shared with Car Throttle revealed in 2023, BMW sold a total of 1,495 M3 Competitions in the UK. Of those, 690 were in Touring flavour - representing 46 per cent of buyers.

Granted, we’re not taking into account the special edition CS here, for which BMW hasn’t revealed exact figures, nor the M4 coupe. For the latter, 753 of those were newly registered, giving quite an even split between the Competition models.

With 2023 the first full year of the M3 Touring on sale, with the saloon introduced in 2020, it’ll be interesting to see if sales keep pace with its respectable share is down to super-keen buyers holding out all these years for their M3 in estate form.

In total, the M3 and M4 variants combined made up half of all UK full-fat M car sales last year, which totalled 4,536 - a 19.4 per cent increase compared with 2022. Throw the new M2 into that mix and the final handfuls of F90 M5s, and it’s refreshing to see there’s still a place for the lower-slung M cars considering the swathe of SUVs being pumped out by the firm these days.

In case you wondered, 111,734 new BMWs were registered last year, meaning four per cent of all are M cars. Not bad by any means. Meanwhile, 28,723 of all the manufacturer’s new UK cars - nearly 26 per cent - were EVs.