Subaru Australia puts up the Gen4 2014 Forester on their site

Subaru Australia has put up the new 2014 Forester on their site. Both of the following images link over to the Australian Subaru site directly into the Forester release page.

I like that colour. I hope that is an actual available colour and not just a photo-shopped colour for the purposes of advertising.

Reports from Japan, where the new Forester is in pre-order, say that Subaru are receiving four times the predicted number of orders for this new fourth generation version of the world’s most popular SUV. Based on this Subaru have increased factory outputs by 40 percent.

However you don’t have to be a genius to work out that if orders are coming in at four times the expected rate just for Japan and they are only able to increase production by 40 percent that there is going to be shortfall against orders. Especially as the USA pre-orders open sometime in late January. I just hope that we in Australia don’t see delivery times for new Foresters push out by up to ten months like they have for the highly popular BRZ.

This next panel is interesting.

You might be wondering why it is interesting.

It is interesting because it clearly states, and remember this came from the Subaru Australia site, that the XT turbo model has a 2.0 litre engine. This invalidates a review in Saturday’s West Australian from the 1st of December where the writer, Steve Lague, indicated that the XT turbo in Australia would be a 2.5 litre engine.

Seems he got this wrong. This panel clearly states the XT turbo is the 2.0 litre turbo released in Japan and about to be released in the USA. This is the entirely redesigned internal cam drive direct injection 2.0 litre engine used in the BRZ, but it is upgraded and has a twin-scroll turbo bolted on. This twin-scroll turbo engine puts out 268 horsepower in Japan but has to be de-tuned to 250 horsepower for import to Australia (sadly).

What I am waiting for now are Subaru’s official economy numbers, which they still have not released, and the pricing. US-based reviews are saying the economy of the 2.0 litre turbo is almost 20 percent better than the 2.5 litre it replaces. If these numbers hold up then the mixed average economy numbers should work out to around 8 litres/100 klm (because the current 2.5 litre has a mixed average of 10.1 litres/100 klm).