BMW M Motorsport has revealed the final race livery of the BMW M3 Touring 24H
11/05/2026
Yes, the roofline is funny. The engineering is not.
BMW M Motorsport has revealed the final race livery of the BMW M3 Touring 24H, the wild estate-shaped endurance car that will compete at the 2026 Nürburgring 24 Hours. What began as an April Fools’ joke in 2025 is now a real, GT3-based race car with 590 hp, 700 Nm, a sequential gearbox and one of the most unexpected silhouettes on the grid. BMW says the car was developed as a competition-ready one-off based on the M4 GT3 EVO and will race in the SPX class at the 2026 Nürburgring 24-hour race.
From joke to race car in eight months
The whole story started on 1 April 2025, when BMW M Motorsport posted images of what looked like an M3 Touring GT race car. It was supposed to be a joke. Instead, the idea reached more than one million users, generated over 1.6 million views, and produced engagement far beyond BMW M Motorsport’s usual social media numbers. BMW then turned the idea into a real project, building the M3 Touring 24H in just eight months.
That is the part that makes this car feel different. Most special racing projects are pushed from the inside out. This one feels like it was pulled into reality from the outside in. Fans saw the idea, wanted it, and BMW actually listened.
The livery finally looks race-ready
For the qualifying rounds, the M3 Touring 24H wore a clever wrap covered with actual social media comments from the original April Fools’ post. Nice idea, very internet, very self-aware. The final race livery is more serious.
The car now wears a darker centre section, with BMW M colours concentrated toward the rear and Shell as the main visible sponsor. The yellow daytime running lights and illuminated kidney grille surround are designed to help identify the car during the night, which matters enormously at the Nürburgring when traffic, darkness and weather can turn every lap into controlled chaos.
The wagon shape created real problems
Turning a GT3 coupe into a Touring was not as simple as stretching the roof and calling it a day. The M3 Touring 24H is 200 mm longer and, including the rear wing, 32 mm higher than the M4 GT3 EVO. BMW also had to move the driver’s seating position up by 60 mm for safe entry and exit because of the Touring body’s proportions.
Aerodynamics were another challenge. The longer roof creates more drag and changes airflow toward the rear. BMW’s solution was a modified rear wing moved further back, designed to reduce air resistance while maintaining downforce and preventing lift at the edge of the Touring roof.
SPX, not SP9
The M3 Touring 24H will be run by Schubert Motorsport with BMW M works drivers Jens Klingmann, Ugo de Wilde, Connor De Phillippi and Neil Verhagen. It will compete in the SPX class, meaning it will not directly fight the top SP9 GT3 cars for overall victory.
This is not BMW replacing its M4 GT3 EVO attack with an estate car. The Touring is an experimental, non-standard entry built for spectacle, engineering and fan engagement. But because it shares so much with the M4 GT3 EVO, nobody should assume it will be slow. It just happens to have a longer roof and more luggage-car energy than anything else near it.
AutoNext Take
This is one of the best BMW M stories in years. Not because the M3 Touring 24H is the most logical race car. It is not. A Touring body is aerodynamically more complicated, heavier in concept and clearly less obvious than a coupe.
BMW M has become very serious in recent years, sometimes maybe too serious. Big numbers, big grilles, big weight, big debates. The M3 Touring 24H brings back something that performance brands often forget: fun.
The kind of fun that starts as an April Fools’ joke, gets pushed by fans, annoys the engineers in the best possible way and somehow ends up on the Nürburgring grid with 590 hp and a proper race programme behind it.
