Car review: The Subaru Forester – one for the green welly brigade

There’s a proud bit of motoring heritage and interest beneath the bonnet of Subaru’s latest 4x4 SUV, and it shows when Sean O’Grady gets behind the wheel

The Forester has impeccable road manners (for something of its bulk) as well as superlative off-road agility (pictures by Subaru)

So here’s what they call an interesting, unusual, and rather rare and special car: the new Subaru Forester e-Boxer. In short, it is an excellent choice for anyone who needs a reliable, robust 4x4 SUV for the countrywide. It is also, to a very limited degree, a hybrid, like, say the Toyota Prius, but you shouldn’t try and kid yourself that this is some kind of green machine, aside from its very classy “Jasper Green” paintwork. In style terms, it’s a basically the automotive equivalent of green wellies, not green lentils.

It has a lot going for it. First, it’s Subaru. It’s a Japanese brand that has been selling its cars in the UK for almost half a century, but it’s still an uncommon sigh on the road. The most famous product is probably the rally-winning Impreza WRC STI (World Rally Championship), which, as many a deserted supermarket car park witnesses on a weekend, is one of the fastest saloon cars on the planet, even if it is being run ragged on a provisional licence rather than being driven by some forest-reared fast Finn.

(Subaru)

Sadly, thanks to the CO2 emissions rules, the Impreza WRX STI isn’t sold in Britain anymore (though the quite entertaining Subaru BRZ coupe is). Subaru instead is centring on its “core” all-wheel drive vehicles, the kind that farmers and country vets like to use. The Forester is the mid-range SUV, a car that is larger and higher than one of the cross-country all-wheel estates from the likes of Volvo (V90), or the Subaru Levorg; but shorter than a full-sized SUV like a Land Rover Discovery, say, or indeed Subaru’s own Outback. Even in the overcrowded market for SUVs it’s a distinctive vehicle – quite butch but not terribly handsome, you’d have to say.

Second, and because it is a mainstream Subaru, it has a “Boxer” engine. This is rare nowadays, when almost all cars on the road fitted with internal combustion engines have the pistons going up and down. Instead the Subaru has them pushing sideways at each other, two pairs on either side. This means that the engine is much flatter, and can be fitted lower down in the bodywork. It was used to great effect in a low run of Volkswagen Beetles, the Porsche 911s that were derived from it, various Alfa Romeos and, if you’re interested, a twelve-cylinder Ferrari. And the aforementioned world-beating Impreza. So, you know, there’s a proud bit of motoring heritage and interest beneath that bonnet.

(Subaru)

There’s also a less lovely “Lineartronic” transmission – a one-speed automatic, if you will, which is slightly better engineered than most of the type (using a metal chain rather than a belt/giant elastic band to take the drive from the engine to the road wheels). It’s still too whiny and unresponsive. This is teamed up with Subaru’s special “symmetrical all-wheel drive system”, which is a permanent all-wheel drive layout, and works both to give the Forester impeccable road manners (for something of its bulk) as well as superlative off-road agility. The transmission is engineered to be in-line with the boxer engine, and thus a have a “symmetrical” weight and power distribution across all for wheel wheels. In normal road use there is a slight bias to power to on the front wheels, mimicking conventional front-wheel drive saloons.

The spec

Subaru Forester 2.0i XE Premium e-Boxer 

Price: £38,995 (as tested; range starts at £32,995) 
Engine capacity: 2.0-litre petrol 4-cyl, 1-sp manual + ‘traction battery’
Power output (PS@rpm): 150@5,600 
Top speed (mph): 117​ 
0 to 60 (seconds): 11.8​ 
Fuel economy (mpg, WLTP): 34.7​ 
CO2 emissions (EU, g/km): 154   

Last, and least, there is that very minimal petrol/electric hybrid system – a modest battery pack “self-charged” by power otherwise wasted, for example when the engine is revving but the car is being braked sharply. There is no plug-in facility, as there is, notably, on rival designs from Mitsubishi, and it only manages to give you a mile or so of pure electric propulsion. It is more about adding power and traction when required – but, more crucially, in lowering Subaru’s overall CO2 emissions averages. This is because of ever-stricter EU (now UK) rules. If manufacturers exceed some very stringent targets for CO2 emissions – on a sales-weighted average across the range – they get fined. Hence the flurry of “electrification” activity and new hybrid variants pouring out from virtually every manufacturer. You do get some benefit in fuel economy from the hybrid system, but it is fairly marginal.

(Subaru)

The Forester, then, is indeed a capable car that can take you to the top of a mountain, and down again (automatic hill descent), but it so happens it is also a very comfortable one, with its heated seats and steering wheel. It can be specified with the full complement of driver assistance aids, including a camera on the sun visor with facial recognition designed to alert you if it thinks you’re too drowsy to drive (which I was grateful for on a long motorway drive).

Yet this car is something rather more, even, than that. In a world where so many car makers are churning out unimaginative me-too SUVs, where the brands are merging and losing their identities (and Toyota has a minority stake in Subaru) and where younger people seem to be losing a passion for the motor car, it is good to see innovative types such as Subaru still doing its own thing. I’m very interested to see what it does when the time comes for an all-electric Forester.