A Fabulous Performer
by David Finlay (24 Nov 04)

This is a car Subaru once said it had no intention of building. A little while after the first, naturally-aspirated Forester appeared, it was followed by the excellent S-Turbo version, which had a detuned version of the Impreza Turbo engine. At the time, Subaru's line was that a Forester with over 200bhp seemed like a little too much of a good thing, and it's certainly true that the S-Turbo's appeal centred on its magnificent balance of power and handling.

When the Impreza was replaced with a new model and the Forester - which is effectively the same car, only higher and with a different body style - likewise, something similar happened. There were power increases, but the Forester XT was still some way behind the Impreza WRX as regarded power. And in two-litre form it still is.

But what have we here? This new XT has basically the same engine as the existing one, but stretched out to 2.5 litres, with a resulting power hike to 208bhp. Well into the cor-blimey zone, then, and a long way past what Subaru reckoned was the reasonable limit for the car back in the late 90s.

Even in its least powerful form, the Forester handles so superbly that it's difficult to think of it in the same terms as any other SUV. The addition of 30-odd bhp to the mix distances the 2.5 XT still further from the herd. Maximum speed is now 140mph, a long way ahead of what other Foresters can achieve but perhaps limited by the aerodynamic effects of the tall body. More significant is a 0-60mph time of dead on six seconds.

Six seconds! The two-litre XT does the job in 7.9, and that feels quick. This thing is something else again. The combination of quite a large-capacity engine and a small turbo (which therefore spins up to operating speed very smartly) means that almost as soon as you hit the throttle pedal you get acceleration, and lots of it. It's very strange to drive something that looks as if it should be towing a horse box but performs like a serious hot hatch.

It doesn't actually feel like a hot hatch, though. All Foresters have soft suspension, which leads to quite a lot of body movement, even though it is always very well controlled. The 2.5 XT doesn't seem noticeably stiffer than the two-litre, and the extra power means that you can create more body roll more quickly than you can in the less frenetic version.

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