It’s the one M3 that seemed less likely to be built. So brilliant that it’s here.

How much: $196,600

Drivetrain: 3.0-litre twin turbo petrol straight six; 390kW/650Nm, eight speed automatic.

How big: 4801mm long; 1903mm wide; 1446mm tall.

Like: Supernatural traction; gifted handling; minimal premium over M4 coupe and M3 sedan; a belting all-rounder for a rarefied market segment.

Not so much: Expensive (but that’s M); likely to be a fleeting opportunity; hard ask for pooches.

JUST when you thought they never would - out it comes.

M aficionados will especially recognise the significance of the M3 Touring - the type never really expected to be, developed from a scarce donor.

The ‘M3’ has become a family, and the coupe shape that started it all is of course now - perhaps still confusingly for traditionalists retaining fondness for the very first - an M4.

But through every generation, there’s never been what you see today.

What makes that seem really weird is that M has never been adverse to the concept of what is conceivably the most exciting the most exciting of all possibilities, a car that combines established M thrills with genuine family-friendly practicality.

It’s literally gone big with the idea, with three M5 generations in this format - the V8 E34 of 1997; the V10-engined E60 from 2003; and the current G90.

They came achingly close to letting the M3 into that club in 2000, with an E46 concept, but it never came to pass, more’s the pity.

Since then, you have imagined the idea would become less likely to ever be realised.

The Three wagon - Touring in BMW-speak - has unavoidably been slowly falling from fashion, a victim of Munich’s sports utilities of course. There’s conjecture might have been dropped completely if not for hardcore holdouts in a few places, including Germany.

But, anyway, those who believe in the impossible have finally had their wish granted.

Fifty years since the first M3, and just as another element - all-wheel-drive - now becomes ‘fully’ part of the car’s M formula (though standard in NZ distributor choice for some time, it’s actually previously been optional to trad rear-drive until now) there’s this M3 Competition wagon.

How good? Well, M rarely puts out duds and the M3/M4 are stunning cars in sedan, coupe and convertible formats. But there’s something about this version that is extra exciting. It really wows, in look and driving feel.

BMW assures that numerous changes under the skin, with additional bracing - check out the under-bonnet scaffolding - to stiffen up the whole body, with emphasis on the open rear compartment, and new suspension settings and rear dampers, mean the Touring is basically of the same integrity as the other DNA-aligned choices and thus as much fun to drive. I’ve absolutely no reason to doubt that.

Assuredly, you’re dealing with a product that not only gloriously packs more horsepower than luggage capacity. It also delivers such massive attack attitude and dynamic skills that, if used to anything like full play, it’ll cement as an ideal ‘kids’ soccer/dogs to the park on Saturday, Sunday for track days’ candidate.

Then there’s the potential exclusivity value - even though M Division had to step up production of this type in 2023, it is still the lowest volume of the Three-based products.

How many will come here has not been shared, but potentially it might be just a handful, perhaps barely above the provision of past limited-edition specials.

More than this factors into its potential of being a deadset collectible. There’s also the uncertainty about how much longer production might run. NZ had to wait its turn; while new here, this car has been coming off the sports department’s line since late 2022. In 2026, the next generation Three is out.

You doubtless know about this second Neue Klasse model. As much as BMW has committed to maintaining a flexible powertrain offering, which means selling it with internal-combustion as an alternate to pure electric, the latter technology is expected to be the more vital to the car’s ultimate future.

M Division says the next M3 will offer both petrol and electric power, but it is clearly eager to steer its buyer base toward the electric type, too.

Their derivation of a factory car that delivers with 800V electrical hardware and batteries 20 percent more energy-dense than today's packs is well into development.

It will also very likely continue as a Touring. And it promises to be quite a beast; not just crazy fast off the line -as almost all electrics are - but also set to deliver very special dynamic behaviour, courtesy of an advanced torque-vectoring programme that can vary the power to each of its four motors in milliseconds.

But that’s all to come. In the now, there’s this car … and it’s glorious.

It’s easy to pick the main competitor. The Audi RS4 Avant has a massive Kiwi following; it’s the car that, more than any other, has established NZ as the leading per capita buyer of RS product. The M3 Competition Touring packs the same 3.0-litre six-cylinder twin-turbo engine as the regular M3 and M4 and drives all four wheels via an eight-speed automatic gearbox.

More horsepower and more impressive acceleration stats - BMW claiming 0-100km in 3.6 seconds - show the M3 to be a decent foil, even if one is no faster than the other overall, and the Audi is cheaper.

That the Competition is not this car’s ultimate format is no particular slur; the CS with less weight and 15kW more grunt is just 0.1s faster.. Assuredly, the wallop as it rolls out in the Competition demands special ‘when and where’ consideration.

Going wild with this wagon very much raises the hunger for fuel - the best economy you can expect is 10.4 litres per 100, I saw a lot worse than that - but on the other hand it has all the equipment, fit and finish and suaveness you’d expect of a high-end BMW. It’s also totally sorted in respect to M-ness; there’s no sense it is struggling to be a member of that club.

An Alcantara-clad steering wheel - a flat-bottomed design instead of perfectly circular - is standard, as are the M Carbon bucket seats up front. These look thin and spindly and uncomfortable, and they are firm to sit into at first, but they’re not as extreme to live with as they appear, as electric adjustment and heating are included.

The dashboard is the latest layout comprising two high-res screens merged together into a single curved panel. These feature slick graphics and a generally intuitive user interface. A shame, though, the climate control has now been relegated to the touchscreen.

It gets plenty of M-specific graphics and menu options of course, and of course there’s a huge range of driver modes to adapt your car to the conditions and your mood. The M1 and M2 hot keys on the wheel are fast tracks to dialling up pre-configured set-ups.

Styling-wise, it’s the usual format of a regular shell that’s been spending a lot of time pushing weights at the gym - much wider wheel arches, spoilers and side skirts, a large rear diffuser, four exhaust pipes - all functional - and, probably for weight-saving but also undoubtedly to reinforce it is a highly-expensive and very exotic car, a carbon-fibre roof. Can you make a hot station wagon look any better than this?

I’m a station wagon tragic in general, but there’s just something about how they present with high-performance treatments. No argument, the RS 4 has always been a stunning looking stomper, but … well, to me the BMW is close to visual perfection, certainly more handsome than the sedan and coupe.

That aside, there’s at least some practicality in that it has an identical 500 litre space to the factory model.

That’s not a huge capacity by wagon standards - for one, it’s humbled by Skoda’s quick wagon, the Octavia RS, which has 640L - but will be enough to deliver reasonably genuine practicality for boxes and bags, the latter of which can be dropped into out having to lift the tailgate, as it has an opening rear window. Fold the rear seats down and it lends 1500 litres of space.

As a dog owner, I’m aware of how favourable wagons can be for canine companions, but whether they’d enjoy this one might be questionable: Dogs have sensitive hearing. Even if you lightfoot, the exhaust is pretty boomy. also, though it has a clever non-slip floor, you could imagine pooches would be scrabbling to stay upright beyond a certain point.

Those factors might become issues for general family use, as well, but that’s just part of the journey with every M car. They are patently driver-first machines, with specific focus on pure driving dynamics and blurring horizons. That’s the real reason for buying into it; everything else just makes for good excuse.

BMW’s Competition fettling is no marketing spin. I took it to a track day; not for participation - press loan agreements very sensibly prohibit that - but to check out how well it slips into the vibe of a day that drew a lot of exotica, ranging from a McLaren, a Mustang Dark Horse, a handful of Porsches (most Taycans) and Mazda MX-5s. Plus a current M4 whose NZ-resident Dutch owner kindly parked up next to the Touring, so we could compare notes.

As a daily? At slow speeds there’s almost no clue that you’re driving anything especially potent. By that, I mean the drivetrain’s feel.

The sound and the ride are another matter: Right from low revs the engine works to convince it actually has two additional cylinders in play. Grumbling from the V8-ish six increases into a deliciously deep timbre as you add in the herbs.

Firm? Of course is it, but then, if it wasn’t, you’d be wondering why not. Like all German performance cars, you have to consider it through the right lens.

So, while comfort is almost ironically-labelled - to point that, if there’s so much of a bug on the road, you think you might feel it - that’s just life in this lane. That Sport and beyond are all the more rigid? So it has to be when you’re chasing iron-fisted body control.

Without going into too much detail, I can confirm that, with all the settings turned up, the M3 is not just a different kind of beast but also a total one, albeit with a significant degree of driver involvement.

Still, the inevitable enthusiast question about whether an all-wheel-drive M3 is fundamentally more rewarding than the old rear-drive types?

The short answer is yes. If you don’t agree, you need to at least accept it has potential to be no worse, as BMW’s format actually seeks to serve best of both worlds.

The configuration revised the front suspension setup and steering, as well as fitting a clutch to distribute power between the front and rear axles with uniquely tuned software.

Yet, while all-paw is in readiness all the time, in normal driving the car is mostly rear-wheel drive, only bringing the front wheels into play when slip is detected. play around and you’ll discover a mid-way setting designed to offer a more traditional rear-driven bias - if you are ‘controlled drifts’ (BMW’s words) this is the one.

Beyond this? Access to absolute anarchy with another drive mode that makes it was Ms used to be; rear-wheel drive only. This has a dedicated 10-stage traction control system adapted from BMW’s motorsport experience, yet it’s probably foolish to see that as an absolute safety net, given it is also strongly recommended for track use only.

Frankly, with so much horsepower at play, you’d be made not to explore the outer edges of the performance envelop without some degree of incremental circumspection.

In road driving, it seems to me that the more traction, the better. Far from ruining the M3, you will very likely find xDrive very likely makes the car more accessible and safer in wet and wintry conditions.

Even on dry roads when there’s plenty of grip, acceleration - whether robust or mild - just feels more predictable, the car seems more secure and less likely to kick out the tail unexpectedly.

Don’t imagine it’s tame. You need to take a lot of liberties with it that probably won't be approved of on public roads, but it will move around notably on the throttle and the brakes. But whereas some all-wheel-drives can mute the driving feel, that’s not the M3. It is beautifully balanced and, from this experience, lets you know exactly what is going on beneath you. The steering is never less than quick and accurate. It’s just (and this may sound very familiar) a great driver’s car.

Which is the whole point of the exercise. The added benefit of the Touring is obviously the enhanced practicality, but you just know M would never have given it a go unless it also met all those vital historic attributes.

So, job done, and how. Fifty years in the making, the M3 Touring has arrived just in time, but perhaps not for a long time.

It’s not at all cheap to buy, but when it looks like it does, goes like it does and sounds like it does … well, there’s little to dislike.