For our needs-driving 1800 scenic miles, which included a bunch of great roads, some gravel, and every kind of weather you might encounter, while carrying a lot of stuff-it was the perfect tool for the job. “Touring” is BMW speak for wagon, but it’s also exactly what we did over four days in the western United States. But for now, it’s a pretty great car as it is. A brighter color? Longer travel suspension? Better-integrated fender flares? Swapping in a black interior? Nothing was too outlandish for our fantasy upgrade lists. When we weren’t discussing how good it looked and drove, we wondered aloud about every possible tweak and change to the package that could make it an even better car. The body is clean and largely free of defects. The interior has held up astonishingly well, despite 280,000 miles on the chassis. It does hide the bolt-on fender flares pretty well, if those aren’t your cup of tea. This car is painted in the very dark Orient Blue Metallic (or as I called it, “black ”) which doesn’t do justice to the subtle surfacing of the E46. The dramatic visual length is perfectly matched by the naturally wide, bulldog stance. The E46 just seems to have improved with wagon-ification. Some 3-Series generations lose something in the wagon transition. The Touring, specifically, is just about perfect. It had just-right proportions broken up by orderly, linear creases and trim. The E46 looked like a refined, smoothed-over E36. When this car debuted, BMW’s styling was incremental. We couldn’t get over how good this E46 Touring looks.
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