Last month, Subaru announced that its long-running Legacy will be discontinued after model year 2025. Made in Lafayette, Indiana, the sedan is going out with a whimper instead of a bang due to abysmally poor sales compared to the Legacy-based Outback.
The assembly line will come to a screeching halt in the spring of 2025. Instead of the Legacy, the Lafayette plant will assemble Subaru's all-new Forester beginning 2026. According to a report from Automotive News that cites big kahuna Atsushi Osaki, the smaller of two Japanese automakers will tap into Toyota's award-winning hybrid tech for the forthcoming Forester Hybrid.
Internal combustion-only Foresters will be produced on the very same assembly line, and the hybrid powertrain will be shared with the slightly smaller Crosstrek. It's not clear, though, if said powertrain is a self-charging hybrid or a plug-in hybrid built around Subaru's 2.5L four-pot boxer.
Considering that more than half of Subarus delivered to customers in the US are imported, it makes plenty of sense to localize production of a high-volume model such as the Forester. Adding a hybrid option should also make it more appealing to a wider target audience, whereas Toyota's hybrid technology is – without a shadow of a doubt – the best there is.
As of May 2024, prospective customers are presented with the FB25 direct-injected boxer in combination with a chain-type continuously variable transmission dubbed Lineartronic. The 2025 Subaru Forester comes from Japan's Ota plant exclusively for the time being, which is a bit weird considering that Forester is extremely popular in the United States of America. How popular is it?
Photo: Subaru
The year-end sales release for 2023 reveals that Forester clocked 152,566 deliveries in this part of the world, up 33.7 percent from 2022. However, the Crosstrek and Outback proved more popular. Subaru delivered 159,193 and 161,814 units, respectively, up 2.6 and 9.9 percent from 2022.
Pricing information for the redesigned Forester was made public at the beginning of April 2024, with prices kicking off at $29,695 (sans the $1,395 destination charge). At the other end of the spectrum, the Forester Touring will set you back $39,995 before taxes and extras. For some reason or another, the sixth-gen Forester isn't available in the off-road trim level referred to as the Wilderness.
Looking over the press release for the all-new Forester's pricing clears things up: Subaru makes the 2024 Forester Wilderness in parallel with the newcomer. The rugged specification is $39,920 (plus the $36,265 delivery charge) and comes with pretty much all the bells and whistles that one could wish for in a compact, all-wheel-drive crossover.
Japanese media reports that a full-electric Forester is under development as well, but Subaru hasn't confirmed or denied this information. Be that as it may, we do know that Subaru is preparing to add three zero-emission SUVs to the lineup by 2027. One will be manufactured at the Yajima plant in Japan, and one will be made by Toyota in the US.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
Would you like AUTOEVOLUTION to send you notifications?
Google News