A New BMW 3 Series Wagon Is Happening, but No Word Yet for the U.S.

Wagon lovers, rejoice: BMW has confirmed it will build a Touring wagon version of the upcoming 3 Series sedan. But will it come to the U.S. market? That’s still to be decided.

At the very end of the all-electric 2027 BMW i3’s world premiere event in Munich, Germany, last week, BMW Group chairman of the board of management and CEO Oliver Zipse dropped a final announcement before walking off the stage. “Here on stage today is just one variant of the BMW 3 Series,” he said. “The 3 Series has always been about much more than a sedan. I don’t want to reveal everything today, but there’s one model I’m happy to confirm: the BMW 3 Series Touring.”

No clear images of the car were shown, but a digital outline appeared on the screen behind Zipse showing something with an unmistakably wagon-like silhouette (the present 3 Series Touring is pictured above, with the outlines of the new car pictured below).

Zipse didn’t elaborate further on what powertrain(s) will be found in the freshly announced 3 Series Touring—all-electric or otherwise—and neither would senior vice president of BMW brand and product management Bernd Koerber in a roundtable discussion following Zipse’s announcement. It sounds like wagon versions of all 3 Series powertrains could be possible, however.

Speaking in generalities, Koerber said, “There’s hardly anything in [our] pipeline [that’s] one variant only. The more defining factor is where is that car relevant in terms of geography, and then what's the right powertrain for that. Then we take out of the toolbox what we need.”

When pressed about whether the U.S. market can expect to get a new 3 Series wagon, Koerber said the company is thinking about including the country in its sales.

“There is a chance. We had Touring discussions with our product council in the U.S. for a very long time, and we were very much positively surprised about the 5 Series Touring,” Koerber said, referencing the popularity of the BMW M5 Touring. “It looks like Touring is becoming a lifestyle thing and [we’re] happy to develop on that.”

MotorTrend asked if there was anything the U.S. buying public can do to help further convince BMW to send 3 Series wagons our way. Petitions? Instagram direct messages? Letters?

“No, no more need,” Koerber said. “We get enough emails and letters on the topic. We know.”

Joking aside, though, it seems the likeliest possibility of getting any sort of long-roofed 3 Series would come as the M3 Touring.

“The reasons for buying a Touring in the U.S. is totally different. It's purely the shape,” Koerber said. “Whereas in Europe, you have the combination of shape, long-distance traveling. That's the typical Touring. It’s the functionality aspect of it, which you don't have. For the U.S., I would always focus on high performance. I would always link the Touring with high performance. And this combination seems to work from a lifestyle perspective. Unique shape, high performance seems to be a good mix.”

This is ultimately unsurprising to hear for any wagon enthusiast. Mercedes and Audi remain the only automakers still selling non-performance wagons. Others, such as the Buick Regal TourX and Volvo V90 and V60, have been discontinued. The Subaru Outback is bigger and taller than ever, its current generation now closer to SUV than wagon.

The remaining wagons are of the AMG, M, and RS performance flavors, because enthusiasts are a self-selecting group. Everyone else gets SUVs.

The last non-M 3 Series wagon BMW offered here was the F31-generation 330i xDrive Sport Wagon. And to be sure, the company has never exported an M3 wagon our way before, though there have been rumors in the past. So while it’s unlikely we’ll get any of the mainstream 3 Series models as wagons, BMW could certainly put that newly acquired M5 Touring market research toward sending us an M3 Touring. That’d still be pretty great.