The Subaru Forester small crossover SUV represents the wholesome, tree-hugging, tread lightly side of Subaru. This is the company that builds all-wheel-drive vehicles for people who live in Vermont, only own sensible shoes and limit themselves to 2-minute showers to reduce their impact on the environment. They may not be glamorous or smell great, but no matter what town Subaru Forester owners travel to, they always know where to get a totally righteous, macrobiotic and organic bran muffin the size of a soccer ball.
Considering Subaru's iconoclastic reputation for rugged engineering and dirt road surefootedness, the Subaru Forester small crossover SUV seemed a natural expression of the company's DNA when it went on sale in America for the 1998 model year. Built around the structure and components used in Subaru's compact cars, that first Forester had the expected flat-4 engine in its nose and an all-wheel-drive system under it. Built boxy and upright, there was nothing overtly stylish about that first Subaru Forester, but if buyers were looking for swoops and flourishes, they shouldn't have been shopping Subaru anyhow.
When the second Subaru Forester arrived for the 2003 model year, Subaru wasn't about to betray the modest success of the first one. So while refinement was evident throughout the new Forester — including much better interior materials and less harshly sharp-edged styling — the basic mechanical package carried over. A few tweaks to the suspension resulted in better turn-in and some of the best steering ever in a small SUV. In 2004 a turbocharged version of the Subaru flat-4 was added to the options list. Subaru was rewarded for this conservative updating and careful hot-rodding with improved sales for the new Subaru Forester, despite an ever more crowded small SUV marketplace.
A third-generation Subaru Forester appeared for the 2009 model year wearing the most handsome sheet metal yet for the Japanese-made crossover. Slightly larger outside and significantly larger inside, this generation of Forester only expanded the brand's attractiveness. A particularly economical version of the new Subaru Forester powered by a new turbodiesel flat-4 was offered in Europe.
A turbodiesel Subaru Forester...rarely does an idea seem so right.
