This car’s discreet design doesn’t boast it, but this is the fourth generation of a true pioneer. Forester will debut its new shapes at the upcoming Los Angeles Motor Show, but the official information was first shown today. Analyzing this car becomes interesting when it’s noticed how Subaru has managed to follow many of the latest car trends at the same time they kept a lot of Forester’s original concept, first shown in 1997. Those connections and their most recent result are what you will read at this article.
All this pioneering comes from the fact that Forester was one of the first cars to express the crossover concept, which in nowadays is completely spreaded among the biggest automakers. Defining only one foundator of this car category is impossible specially because the idea of concentrating several proposals at one single car has been widely used by lots of vehicles worldwide, which even includes Volkswagen Kombi’s first years. Having this considered, it becomes easy to understand why the last decades had lots of cars trying to practice some sort of alchemy in order to find which pair of categories would be more successful to offer simultaneously. From Chevrolet Lumina APV’s futuristic attempt of creating a sports minivan to Pontiac Aztek’s inexplicably hideous interpretation of a family SUV, most of those cars unfortunately had much more inspiration than sales success. However, there were some particular vehicles starting to prosper among all those failures. Subaru Forester emerged at the same year of Volvo V70 Cross Country, with the very similar proposal of a halfway who can be observed as a tougher station wagon, with full traction and paintless external parts to withstand dirt and mud, or also as an urban jeep, with better internal space and much more comfort. After all, this one ended up being the golden goose everyone was looking for.
Nevertheless, Forester had a more modest debut than the Swedish station wagon. Its first generation shared platform with the famous Impreza, but nothing of its iconism – in fact, it wasn’t hard to mistake it for Outback, another Subaru which is the station wagon of Legacy. But Forester started to earn great acceptance due to its conceptual differences when it comes to proportions: if Volvo had an upgraded station wagon, the Japanese offered a “domesticated SUV”. Besides that, offering good trim levels at good prices have also helped it to prosper at several markets, including United States. Gradually, this car created a great market performance and deserved not only a second generation, but also a third and the fourth one seen at these pictures. Forester started in a typical 1990s design, with well-separated volumes and plenty of straight creases. The second one was nothing more than an evolution of that, featuring updated lights and windows’ shapes, but the third one entered 2008 with a radical change. At that point the crossovers became a normal car category, with an increasing number of members around the world – Volvo even released two of them, XC90 and XC60. So the Japanese took the opportunity to only adapt their car to what the customers began to search.
That initially mentioned outstanding part concerns about how even though Forester has became closer to a SUV than it was at 1997, Subaru managed to maintain what made it famous in the first place. Instead of following the “recipe” of giving it an attractive design and focusing only at the urban performance, the Japanese applied their latest design rules but keeping Forester’s discretion, resulting at a modern but still imponent style. Besides that, it has increased a little in every direction, achieving bigger internal space. The pictures also show that the car followed some current trends such as the panoramic sunroof and the entertainment system with a big touchscreen at the central console. This car’s sales will offer a boxer 2.5 with 170 hp and a 2.0 turbo with 250 hp, but in markets such as Europe there will be also a boxer diesel 2.0. The transmission options will be a six-speed manual and a CVT automatic for both markets, and the AWD traction has changed to improve the driving at different ground types. Besides that, the pictures show that Forester’s trim levels will bring visual differences, such as sport bumpers, spoilers and exclusive wheel sets. After all, as a typical crossover Forester needs to be up-to-date with the customers’ preferences, in order to attract now both station wagons, SUVs and another crossovers’ buyers, like it has done for the last fifteen years.
