This is the new BMW M3 CS Touring: a 542bhp practical performance wagon

You wait ages for a BMW M3 wagon, and then two come along at once. Sort of. This is the new M3 CS Touring, the fastest, most powerful version of BMW’s coolest new car.

Clearly making hay while the Audi RS4 is having a nice holiday and everyone’s forgotten about the Mercedes-AMG C63 estate, BMW has ushered in the ‘Competition Sport’ version. And like its two- and four-door siblings, this Competition Sport Touring packs an uprated powertrain.

Where that 3.0-litre turbocharged six-pot produces 523bhp in the not-at-all-regular Competition, it now makes 542bhp and 479lb ft, allied to an eight-speed dual-clutcher and four-wheel-drive to allow much acceleration and speed.

Indeed, it’ll do 186mph flat out. Go from 0-62mph a tenth of a second faster (3.6s). Power through 0-124mph in 11.7s. From 50-75mph in 2.7s in fourth gear and 3.5s in fifth gear if you’re feeling lazy. There are also bespoke settings for the adaptive dampers, steering and brakes.

As per BMW’s other modern CS cars, the 3.0-litre features a new, blowier set of blowers with more charge pressure (2.1 bar), plus a few 0s and 1s inserted into the engine management code to allow for the 20bhp increase. The mountings for this engine are stiffer, too.

There’s an M-specific exhaust with a titanium rear silencer to make the noise more… titaniumier, and the ability to change the titaniumness via the M modes including Sport and Sport+.

Speaking of, said modes change the aggressiveness of an already very aggressive car. And speaking of, there are conspicuous red contour lines around various elements on the outside, and carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) bits including the bonnet, splitter, air intakes, mirror caps and rear diffuser to signify its extra grunt.

There’s lots of CS badging inside along with carbon buckets and CFRP paddles. Compared to the not-at-all-regular 1,865kg M3 Touring, this CS shaves off… 15kg. Yeah, it is not exactly leichtbau.

Still, it looks cool, especially shod in those exclusive forged 19in/20in alloys, and choice of green, blue, white or sapphire black body colours. Plus, you can show off your coolness through the M Drift Analyser and Laptimer apps, standard on the CS, among lots of other driver assistance systems and toys.

BMW’s only building a limited number of these M3 CS Tourings, and there’s no word on a) how many it’s building in total, and b) how many of those are coming to the UK. But we do know how much they’ll cost in the UK: each car starts at £120,600, which is £32,655 more than a not-at-all-regular M3 Touring. Worth it for the most powerful version of BMW’s coolest new car?