The 850hp BMW M3 Touring That Recalibrated My Brain

It’s funny as I think back to a decade or so ago, when there was a lot of skepticism about the future of the tuning industry. There was much talk about new cars being too hard to modify, and delicate engines that would fail if you fiddled with them too much. Yet here we are in 2026, and I’m sitting behind the wheel of a BMW M3 Touring packing 850hp. What the hell is happening?!

Just days before my recent trip to the UK to visit Playground Games, the studio responsible for Microsoft’s new Forza Horizon 6 game, I still hadn’t arranged a car to drive. Thankfully, the guys at R44 Performance hooked Alec and me up with a demo machine they’ve been developing since it released a couple of years back. Their parting words: “Enjoy it”.

Coming from a pretty much standard G83 M4 Convertible in Japan (stay tuned for the full build story dropping this month), I thought what we’d be riding in would be a boosted-up G81 M3 Touring with a little more performance. Because while the new breed of M-cars are popular in Japan, no one there has really pushed the tuning envelope. Little did I know, however, that R44’s wagon was not only going to blow me away, but literally recalibrate my brain as to how insanely tunable the S58 engine is.

​We picked up the car from R44 Performance’s shop in Wembley before jumping on the M40 and heading north towards Leamington Spa, our destination for a few days. Once out of London’s congestion and ridiculous 20mph-everywhere speed limits, I floored the accelerator to sample what this M3 Touring was all about. Instantly, I was served up a surge of torque that felt like nothing I’d ever experienced from a turbocharged straight-six.

While my M4 is a great car, it does take a while to get going at low RPM, but then you get some nice mid-range punch that instantly puts a smile on your face. The R44 M3 Touring, however, seemed to respond instantly to my right-foot input, rewarding every prod of the accelerator with an explosion of torque that never seemed to give up all the way to redline. As I machine-gunned through the ZF 8HP transmission’s gears, the acceleration was just as ferocious. My mind boggled at the pace we were packing on.​

When R44 sent the wagon over to the USA for SEMA 2023, it ran a single-turbo conversion that saw engine output head well into four figures. Since then, it’s been returned to its stock twin-turbo setup but with reworked intakes and a full R44 exhaust system. The current result is 750hp on pump gas and 850hp on ethanol.

To get the S58 to reliably deliver an extra 300hp over its factory output, a substantial amount of supporting hardware was required. The upgrades began with a Precision Raceworks port injection kit, fuel pump, and Injector Dynamics fuel injectors. The ECU was then sent to Tom Wrigley Performance for a Stage 2 calibration, while a host of CSF Race cooling components were added to keep temperatures in check. These include a CSF charge-cooler manifold, twin auxiliary radiators, engine oil and transmission coolers, and front-mounted heat exchangers.

​With the engine work complete, R44 turned their attention to handling enhancements, which center around a KW Variant 3 coilover kit. The wagon also received camber plates, rear toe arms, castor bushes, and drop links from Suspension Secrets, along with H&R anti-roll bars front and rear. While the factory M3 brake calipers remain, they have been joined by EBC 2-piece floating discs, EBC pads, and HEL brake lines. Vossen LC3-02 forged wheels wrapped in Michelin Pilot Sport tires finish off the ensemble, adding all the grip you’d ever need on the road and bringing a fresh look to the exterior.

The result is probably the most capable M-car I’ve ever driven. But the craziest thing is, half the time you don’t even realize you’re driving a station wagon; the way the M3 Touring shot down the B-roads in the Cotswolds, where we drove to photograph it, was eye-opening. The monumental traction of the xDrive quickly becomes the most important aspect of the car, because without it, it would be quite a handful, to put it mildly. Unless you want a five-seat drift station wagon, that is.

I came away impressed by just how much potential lies in the G-series M-cars, knowing that if I wanted, I could bring some insane performance to my own one. At the same time, I can’t help but think that we’re pretty much back at that opening sentiment this story started with. What will the tuning industry be able to do if all we have to look forward to in the coming years are performance hybrids and EVs? The next M3/M4 seems to be going this direction, so what will that leave for those of us who like to fettle with cars?

I’m hoping that in a decade we won’t be looking back at 2026 and longing for what may well be the peak of the tuned ICE car. Let’s discuss in the comment section below.