Petroyle M3 Touring, £60k seven seaters...

... and car designs you once hated but now love

By Cam Tait / Tuesday, 9 June 2026 / Loading comments

One of the many great things about the booming world of restomods is that it always has an answer for the many automotive ‘what ifs’. As in, what if you shoved an old Formula 1 engine in a Porsche 930? That’ll be the Lanzante 930 TAG Turbo. Or what if Lancia had taken its Beta Montecarlo Group 5 racer to Pikes Peak? That’s what Kimera’s trying to figure out with its epic K39. And now Petroyle has answered one of the biggest ‘what ifs’ of the 21st century, with its BMW M3 Touring plugging the massive and obvious omission in the E46’s lineup.

While Petroyle benefits from 25 years’ worth of technology and engineering advancements to improve upon the original, including extensive use of carbon fibre, Matt Bird came to the conclusion that BMW would have surely been on to a winner had production been green-lit in the first place. So to kick start today’s episode of The Gassing Station podcast, we look into all the promising concepts that really should have made production. Think the Range Rover Coupe SV, Audi R8 TDI, Lamborghini Estoque and many more. So if you’re in need of some inspiration for a restomod project, we’ve got you covered.

Back to cars that actually exist, PHer b14 is in need of a new family car that can comfortably seat seven. They’re aware that the likes of Kia, Peugeot and Skoda all have offerings that fit the bill just fine, but they’re keen to get some a little more premium and have a budget of up to £60,000 to play with. Sam’s certainly nailed the premium part of the criteria with this Bentley Bentayga V8 for £52,995, which not only gets your a third row but the seats themselves look genuinely usable and surprisingly swanky. I’ve gone a bit more sensible with this BMW X7 xDrive30d for £57,000, which is far more understated and, because it’s a diesel, will go far longer between trips to the pumps. But if you think you can do better, you can pop your suggestions into the topic here.

Bringing the episode to a close, we dig through Starsky80’s ‘cars that you disliked the styling of when new but like now’ topic. You won’t be surprised to see a lot of Bangle-era BMW mentions, and a fair bit of love for the Fiat Multipla. PHer swanseaboydan has even come around to the Nissan Figaro’s design, which is a brave thing to admit. But we listen without judgement, so get stuck into the topic here and give the pod a listen while you’re at it.

Listen here