The BMW M3 CS Touring: The Ultimate Daily Driver or the Most Ludicrous Way to Buy Bog Roll?

Let’s get one thing straight: the 2025 BMW M3 CS Touring is an estate car that has absolutely no interest in helping you live a sensible, practical life. No, this is a car that exists purely to prove a point — namely, that you can combine family responsibilities with launching yourself down a B-road like a caffeinated lunatic.

It’s a car for the person who wants to take the kids to school but also set a Nürburgring lap time on the way home. It’s for the person who appreciates the finer things in life, like carbon fibre, aggressive exhaust noises, and a boot big enough to fit an entire midlife crisis. So, is this really the ultimate daily driver? Let’s find out.

What Even Is the M3 CS Touring?

It’s an estate car. But also an M3. But also a CS. Which means it’s fast. But also practical. But also quite a bit mad. BMW has essentially taken an M3, stretched it out at the back, thrown in a load of carbon fibre, and added more power, more noise, and more reason for your other half to ask, “Why are you spending so much on a car when we still haven’t renovated the bathroom?”.

The ‘CS’ bit stands for ‘Competition Sport’, which is BMW-speak for “We’ve cranked this thing up to eleven”. It’s got more power, less weight, and is angrier than your neighbour when you start it up at 6 am.

And the best part? It’s still an estate. That means it can do all the boring stuff like carrying a week’s worth of shopping, lugging around the dog, and making you look like a responsible adult, while secretly being capable of humiliating supercars at the traffic lights.

The Specs: Where the Madness Begins

Under the bonnet sits a 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged inline-six, producing a ludicrous 550 horsepower and 650 Nm of torque — more than enough grunt to turn a quick trip to Tesco into a high-speed chase scene.

This power is sent through an eight-speed M Steptronic automatic gearbox, which means no, you can’t have a manual, and yes, you’ll still be changing gear faster than your brain can process what’s happening. It also comes with BMW’s xDrive all-wheel-drive system, which ensures you don’t immediately end up in a hedge every time you get a bit overexcited, although there is a rear-wheel-drive mode, should you want to know what it’s like to end up in a hedge.

The result? 0-62 mph in 3.4 seconds. That’s faster than most supercars from ten years ago — in an estate! Top speed? 186 mph. Because, apparently, BMW believes that’s a necessary feature for a family car.

And the boot space? 500 litres with the seats up, 1,510 litres with them down, which is BMW’s way of saying, “You can fit a lot of regrets in here after realising you’ve just spent six figures on an estate car”.

The Looks: Angry and Practical

The M3 CS Touring doesn’t look subtle. In fact, it looks like it wants to pick a fight with you. The huge kidney grilles still divide opinion (mostly between “Why?” and “Make it stop”), and the carbon fibre accents make it clear that this is no ordinary estate. Then there’s the rear spoiler, which exists purely to let everyone know you didn’t just buy a normal M3 Touring — you bought the special one.

And if you were hoping for a dazzling array of colour choices, brace yourself. You get one. Yes, that’s right. BMW has given you a grand total of “a paint option” — Black Sapphire Metallic. My pick after trawling the options? Well, I went with Black Sapphire, because while everyone else is trying to show off, I prefer the understated approach. You know, the kind of understatement that still involves 550 horsepower.

I should add that, for the price of a slightly older car, BMW has followed the rulebook written by Porsche’s Paint to Sample and will allow you to select from a slightly more malleable colour chart of BMW Individual colours if you’re extremely nice to your sales representative and commit to buying three other cars that nobody else wants. When exactly did we all agree to give our kidneys to our local car dealership, just so that we can paint the car we’re paying for in something other than ‘business mileage grey’?

Is This Really the Ultimate Daily Driver?

BMW says this is the ultimate daily driver, but is it really? On one hand, it’s practical. It has five seats, a big boot, and enough space for the dog, the kids, and the overwhelming sense of joy that comes from owning something this ridiculous.

It’s packed with all the latest tech, including a 12.3-inch digital instrument cluster, a 14.9-inch infotainment screen, and a head-up display, so you can see exactly how much trouble you’re getting yourself into. It even has a heated steering wheel, because nothing says practical family car like heated luxury items inside a 550 horsepower monster.

But, on the other hand, the suspension is stiff, which means your spine will become very familiar with the concept of road imperfections, the exhaust is loud, which means your neighbours will hate you, the fuel economy is officially rated at “Hahaha, no” — BMW says you might get around 23 mpg if you drive like a saint, but let’s be honest, you won’t. Oh, and the front grille. It’s still there. We’ve tried ignoring it. We can’t.

And then there’s the price. £123,845. For a BMW estate. Yes, it’s fast, and yes, it’s special, but you’ll need to be prepared for the moment when someone asks, “So how much was it?”, and you have to pretend you didn’t hear them.

So, is the BMW M3 CS Touring the ultimate daily driver? If you define ‘ultimate’ as fast, practical, and completely unhinged, then yes, this is it. If you define ‘ultimate’ as comfortable, subtle, and fuel-efficient, then no. Absolutely not.

But let’s be honest, you don’t buy a car like this because it makes sense. You buy it because you want to scare hot hatches at the lights, take a detour just for the hell of it, and turn a trip to the shops into a full-blown driving experience.

You buy it because you can. And that’s exactly why I love it.

Written by: Paul Pearce