Choose those grilles or choose a fuel type rapidly going out of fashion for your rapid G21 3 Series Touring; so, should you go M340d instead of M3?
After five generations and getting on for 40 years in production, we’ve finally got the first Touring model of the BMW M3 inbound. The car everybody craved for ages. Except… BMW has gone and fitted the front end of it with those love-em-or-really-loathe-em front kidney grilles from the 4 Series line, meaning that the long-awaited coming of the M3 Touring might not be what everyone was on tenterhooks for after all.
So, what if you want a rapid 3 Series wagon and, for some strange reason, you’re not into the idea of an Alpina B3 Touring? Well, thankfully, BMW now has two M Performance options of the G21 for you to have a look at, and there’s not a stupidly massive grille in sight. Albeit, by the same token, the current Three’s intakes aren’t the smallest items ever to issue forth from the Bavarian company’s drawing boards.
Anyway, we’d actually advocate steering clear of the M340i petrol model. Oh, it’s a superbly polished car in many ways, but it doesn’t feel very BMW-ish. Not with its xDrive all-wheel drive, somewhat subdued straight-six twin-turbo 3.0-litre engine and strait-laced chassis. For a 374hp 3 Series, which makes it more powerful than the legendary E46 M3 CSL, it’s surprisingly humdrum.
And it’s not as if this car, the M340i’s turbodiesel analogue, promises any extra firecrackers in the performance department. This is the M340d, fitted with the B57 ‘D30T0’ application of the six-cylinder derv-drinker, here making a commendable 340hp. Admittedly, that’s some way down on that M340i’s 374hp, but it’s the torque that is more telling – the M340d serves up fully 516lb ft of the stuff (that’s as much as the E60-based, V8-supercharged petrol Alpina B5 could muster), which eclipses the M340i’s 369lb ft quite comprehensively.
Of course, as there’s a considerable 110kg in it between M340i and M340d Tourings, in favour of the former, then there’s three-tenths of a second between the pair of them for the 0-62mph run. And as the majority of the M340d’s extra portliness is going to be accounted for by the heavier diesel engine, that means it’ll be the more nose-heavy and a less involving car. Plus, it’ll only rev to 5,000rpm, where the M340i can spin-out to 6,500rpm.
Except, things don’t always work out quite how they might look on paper. Because this M340d xDrive Touring might just be one of the most complete BMWs, or indeed one of the most complete cars of any make, that we’ve ever driven. It is an utterly superb creation from start to finish, making a mockery of our headlong dash away from diesel as a fuel source and proving that the M3 Touring that’s on the way is simply not necessary.
For starters, the engine. It’s big of heart and robust of power delivery, with lag only really present if you try and force it into doing something daft like trying to lug from 35mph with the gearbox in seventh and manual mode. Most of the time, you wouldn’t know the M340d was a turbodiesel at all. Thank two-stage sequential turbocharging for that, as well as the fact that this car is now a mild hybrid with a 48-volt system providing some torque infill here and there. The whipcrack Steptronic gearbox and hugely tractive xDrive system can’t hurt matters, either.
What’s particularly nice about the M340d, though, is that it makes a lovely noise. It’s a touch synthetically augmented, but it actually sounds more barrel-chested and alluring than the rather tame notes the M340i sings. Couple this to supreme damping, with Adaptive M Suspension available as an option (but you don’t strictly need it) and a genuine sense of some inherent rear bias to the chassis, and the result is a car that’s storming fun when you want it to be. Aside from the too-heavy steering in Sport mode, there’s little we dislike about the way the M340d handles – and plenty we adore.
Yet it’s as sublime as a long-distance Touring, ah, tourer, and this is where it really hammers home its superiority to the M340i. Capable of nearly 50mpg on a steady motorway cruise, and in excess of 30mpg even when being exerted from time-to-time, the M340d is that marvellous blend of the thrilling and the urbane. You’ll not lament anything about the way it conducts itself in town, nor how it lopes gracefully along on faster, extra-urban routes. The ride quality and noise suppression are both absolutely top notch.
Visually, it’s bang on the money as well. Everything looks splendid inside. And the BMW is glorious to behold on the outside, especially with the £750 Shadowline Plus pack that paints a set of 19-inch M Light Double-Spoke alloys in Jet Black, while simultaneously colouring the door mirror caps, the window surrounds and the kidney grilles in the same hue. We really hope we’re proved wrong on this particular score, but this might very well be one of the last truly handsome BMW Tourings, judging by some of the aesthetic work coming out of the company right now. OK, so our test car had a chunky £7,440 of options on it, turning it into a near-£62,000 machine in the process.
BMW M340d xDrive Touring (G21): our verdict
And you could argue you get much of the M340d’s magic from a nicely specified 330d M Sport Touring instead. Or maybe even a 320d. But that’s missing the point. The M3-Touring-that-never-was-previously always promised to be an incredibly practical and useable car on the one hand, and an engaging performance machine on the other. And there’s little doubt in our mind that the M340d xDrive Touring aces these two oh-so-disparate briefs so convincingly that we’re not really that interested in the full-fat-M ‘real thing’ that’s on the way. Seriously.
It’s been a long wait for M fans, but the near-perfect BMW M3 Touring is already here. It’s just that, as an all-wheel-drive turbodiesel model from the ‘halfway-house’ of BMW performance, it’s not quite how we always envisioned it. Doesn’t make it any the less brilliant as a result, however.
