BMW's new M350 xDrive makes 443 hp, and drifts only from 2027
Miramas signed off the new 3 Series chassis, minus its headline feature
BMW has finished the last round of driving-dynamics testing on the combustion-engined 3 Series at its proving ground outside Miramas in southern France, and confirmed the car at the top of the range. The M350 xDrive carries a 3.0-litre TwinPower Turbo inline-six with 48V mild hybrid assistance, 443 hp and a 0 to 100 km/h time of 4.1 seconds. It also gets a drift mode that will not be in it.
The M350 xDrive is the only six-cylinder in the new 3 Series
Everything else in the petrol range is a four-cylinder. The M350 xDrive is the sole six, a 3.0-litre TwinPower Turbo inline unit with the same 48V mild hybrid technology the four-cylinder cars use, and it arrives with an eight-speed Steptronic transmission and xDrive both fitted as standard, alongside adaptive M suspension, an M Sport differential and variable sport steering. Production starts in the second half of 2026. Against the M340i xDrive it replaces, which made 374 hp, that is 69 hp more, a jump BMW's own announcement never mentions.
Drift Moment sends the full engine output to the rear wheels
The new function is called Drift Moment, and it is the first time a 3 Series M Performance model has had one. Activated from the central display, it routes the engine's drive entirely to the rear axle, working alongside M-typical control of the multidisc clutch with DSC switched off. BMW frames the sensation as one previously reserved for cars from M GmbH, which is fair enough: a two-wheel-drive setting has been an M3 and M5 fixture for years. What is new is finding it a rung below them.
The drift mode arrives during 2027, by remote software upgrade
It will not be in the car at launch. Production of the M350 xDrive begins in the second half of 2026, and BMW says Drift Moment will be made available over the course of 2027, at which point it will also be activated in cars already delivered to customers via a Remote Software Upgrade. Depending on where a buyer lands in that window, the feature the car is being introduced on could be absent for the better part of eighteen months. The method itself is becoming ordinary, and Volvo is switching on V2L in EX30s it has already sold the same way.
xDrive is standard, so the software undoes the hardware
There is no rear-drive M350. All-wheel drive is standard specification on the only six-cylinder 3 Series, which makes Drift Moment a software feature whose entire job is to switch off a drivetrain layout the buyer had no option to decline. That is not a complaint about how it works, because an electronically decoupled front axle genuinely does give you two cars in one. It is a clean illustration of where a car's character now sits. The hardware is fixed at the factory, and the personality is a menu item.
Arjeplog and the Nurburgring came before Miramas
Miramas was the last stop, not the only one. The car had already been run across the frozen surfaces of BMW's winter test centre at Arjeplog and around the Nurburgring before it reached the southern French site, where a high-speed oval, several handling courses and a spread of road surfaces are used to finish the tuning. Underneath sits a double-joint spring strut front axle and a five-link rear, with high-preload anti-roll bar mounts at both ends, a longer wheelbase and wider tracks than the outgoing car, an upgraded integrated braking system and a revised steering ratio. Lift-related dampers are standard, adaptive and adaptive M suspension are optional, and for the first time buyers can specify 245/35 R20 front and 275/30 R20 rear sports tyres.
AutoNext Take
The number worth watching is not 443, it is whatever Drift Moment costs in 2027. BMW is delivering it by Remote Software Upgrade into cars already sitting on driveways, which is the same channel the company uses to sell optional functions after the fact. A feature that arrives through the store is a feature that can be priced in the store, and BMW has said neither that Drift Moment will be free nor that it will be standard on every M350 xDrive. Until it says one or the other, this is a promise rather than equipment.
What the M350 xDrive does settle is that BMW is not finished with the six. The electric i3 got its own central computer, the Heart of Joy, while the petrol cars run a separate Driving Stack tuned around a driveshaft, so there are now two different sets of brains under one Neue Klasse face. Committing a new inline-six to production in the second half of 2026 is not a run-out gesture, and it sits deliberately alongside an i3 that claims 906 km on a charge. BMW has built both arguments in full and left the choosing to the customer. That costs more than picking a side, and for the 3 Series it is probably worth it.
