This is the brand new BMW 3 Series Touring

This is the brand new BMW 3 Series Touring. It looks… decent, doesn’t it? Still a little fussy – as we maintained with the saloon – but overall not a bad looking thing at all.

Estates are cooler, in any case. BMW tells us some 1.7 million 3 Series Tourings have been sold ever since that first E30 paved the way back in 1987, so this one’s gotta do the numbers.

Speaking of numbers, it’s bigger than its predecessor, because of course it is. So there’s a bit more length, a smidge more width (truly, a smidge – 16mm), and a smidge’s smidge worth of additional height (8mm more than before).

Up front, it’s business as usual, and – as we’ve said before – there’s a lot of business to take in. Kidney grilles (in moderate proportions, at least), those full LED headlights as standard with that weird little kink on the bottom, and a fair chunk of crease along the front bumper.

Run along the side and you’ll spot that line that kicks up towards the boot and a small spoiler lip, with LED rear lights featuring darker upper sections. The boot gets automatic opening as standard, and thanks to a slightly lower loading sill, ingress and egress for your pooch should be a little less cumbersome.

The actual load compartment itself is a tad wider and holds 500 litres' worth of Stuff. Drop the back seats, and that rises to 1,510 litres. That’s more than a C-Class estate, and though smaller than a new Volvo V60 seats up, it's bigger seats down. In any case, it’s a capacious storage space. So many pooches.

There’ll be a variety of engines on offer: the M340i xDrive (3.0-litre, straight-six, 370bhp, 0-62mph in 4.5secs), the 330i (2.0-litre 4cyl, 255bhp, 0-62mph in 5.9secs), and later on this year, a base 320i (2.0-litre 4cyl, 180bhp, 0-62mph in 7.6secs).

Diesels? There are a few of those, too. A 2.0-litre four-pot diesel spans the 318d (147bhp), the 320d (187bhp, 0-62mph in 7.1secs with the eight-speed auto), and the 320d xDrive. A 3.0-litre straight-six comes in the form of the 330d xDrive (260bhp, 0-62mph in 5.4secs).

As ever, it’s stiffer than the old 3er Touring, lighter by up to 10kg, gets continuously variable lift-related dampers as standard, or the option of adaptive M dampers, optional M Sport brakes (bigger, err, stoppier, blue-er), and a wealth of assistance systems.

It arrives 32 years after the original BMW estate car. What do you lot make of this sixth-gen Touring?