These days a BMW 3 Series Touring is about as special or alternative as professing a fondness for Coldplay while you sip a Starbucks latte. However possession of a BMW keyfob marked you out as a thrusting go-getter back in the 1980s.
Well, that was the legend anyway, even if there wasn’t much thrust in a 316 automatic. You needed a six-pot Beemer for that – and a willingness to compromise. If you needed an estate car, the E30 Three was not the most capacious choice, but then it really didn’t need to be. The 3 Series Touring was – and still is – a lifestyle choice.
There’s room for a couple of spaniels or a pushchair, but little else. Only the space-saving design of its semi-trailing arm rear suspension saved it from being even more limited when it comes to load-lugging duties.
The Touring was actually born of frustration. BMW employee Max Reisbock was annoyed that he couldn’t fit his wife, two kids and all their stuff into a 3 Series for a holiday so he decided to build an estate version in his shed. Using a totalled 323i, he moved the C-pillar back, added the windows from a two-door E30 and fabricated the missing panels. With a budget of around seven grand (in today’s money), he had a working prototype in six months. The BMW board loved it, giving it the green light with only minor changes.
Oozing style inside and out, the production car belies its Heath Robinson-ish origins. The beautiful leather chairs, the driver-focused dash, the red-lit instruments – it all has that subtle coolness nailed by BMWs of this era.
‘Our’ car is a top of the range 325i, powered by the M20 engine (here in M20B25 form). This lusty engine has passed into legend as one of BMW’s true greats, howling and then screeching as you soar to 7000rpm, but with more than enough mid-range muscle to slingshot past dawdlers. It’s not a race car – it’s too well damped for that – but it is exciting.
The rear suspension may not be the most sophisticated but the way the rear digs in as you power out of a corner can’t help but raise a smile. The steering is well-weighted, and though it’s fairly slow in operation, it manages to feel cohesive, planted and solid.
