While the Ford Kuga gets all the attention for rocking up fashionably late at the SUV crossover party, the poor Forester seems to have blundered far, far from any kind of trendiness. What a turnaround.
The Mk1 Forester was well ahead of the curve, back in 1997. It was pretty much the originator of the soft-roader genre. Since then, this one-off has spawned a rampant contagion - not just Ford but Renault, Volvo, Mercedes and Saab will launch the things this year.
But as the Kuga shows, the thing to do in '08 is to dress in swoopy, flashy body panels. Instead, the Forester is bulkier and boxier than ever, in an inexplicable attempt to mimic old-style SUVs - vehicles now deeply unfashionable. Oops.
Climb inside, and you meet a jumble of well-assembled but mismatched, hard-surfaced dash plastics that would have been quite good in a supermini 10 years ago, but are distinctly yesterday in today's 'premium crossover'. And then you start up the engine. Petrol? But dahlink, hasn't just everyone gone diesel in their crossovers now?
That, though, is the joy of dealing with Subaru: it's a company that doesn't give a stuff about fashion. It doesn't really do marketing, and the design department is small and meek and always getting knocked back by the guys who really rule the roost, the engineers.
If it's a question of finding the budget for a soft-feel dash or a better kind of bearing in the centre diff, it's the diff that'll win out every time. Remember, the corporate notepaper still says Fuji Heavy Industries. A no-nonsense name for a proper, no-nonsense Japanese car company.
So the Forester goes about its business with utter conviction and sincerity. Only a boxer engine is good enough, because it's short front-to-rear and low top-to-bottom. So the centre of gravity is low (perfect when on the road) yet the ground clearance is high (perfectoff it).
The crankshaft runs fore-aft rather than transversely, which makes the AWD transmission straightforward and light. Subaru has clung to this layout for yonks. It's expensive, but it works.
In the whole wide world, there's only one other car company as stubborn, and it happens to use the same layout, albeit with two more cylinders and travelling in the opposite direction. Yes, think of a Forester as a 911 Carrera 4 going backwards and you won't be far wrong.
All of which means this thing has the road manners to make other crossovers feel a league off the pace. The others are either stiff to make them handle, so they ride like carts - see the X3 and Tiguan. Or they're soft in search of comfort, but corner like galleons. In some cases, they neither ride nor handle. But the Forester deals with bumps really sweetly, yet still likes a bend or two.
It rolls and pitches a bit, but in a progressive kind of way, and is happy for you to enjoy the traction. All that lets it down is the power steering, a new fully electric system with too little feel.
Unfortunately, Subaru can sometimes be tripped up by its corporate uniqueness and smallness. When Europe started to go mad for diesels 10 years ago, insular little Subaru wouldn't - couldn't afford to actually - jump on the bandwagon.
And because its cars were designed around the boxers, there was no way of taking the standard industry shortcut and buying-in an in-line engine from Fiat or Peugeot. So the new Forester launches as a petrol only, as previous Foresters always were.
But those diligent engineers have stuck their necks right out and developed the world's only boxer diesel engine. It's in the Legacy just now and is great. It comes to the Forester this September, with a six-speed gearbox.
Which is a relief, because the petrol engine doesn't really have the guts required. Sure, it's smooth and makes a nice burble and revs like a yo-yo, so it's pleasant to use in town or on a curvy road.
The trouble comes when you have to overtake something. Worse still is the auto: it's just a four-speed, and in the interests of eking out a not-too-catastrophic CO2 figure, it has been given cripplingly high gearing. I was in the auto and passing a full-size white van on a dual carriageway when the road took a tiny upward incline and he unceremoniously undertook me right back again.
The Forester uses the new Impreza platform, which is wider than before and longer in the wheelbase. You feel the generosity of space in the cabin, especially the back, where there's even a split reclining seat.
The boot's bigger and squarer too, though it still has a high floor. No worries about loading it right up, as there's self-levelling suspension - another purist bit of engineering most customers won't even realise they've got.
Ditto the dual-range transfer lever on the manual version, which lowers the overall ratio, effectively giving you another five shorter gears,which is dead useful for off-road control, or towing. Approach and departure angles are good for off-roading too: no specious spoilers and sill extensions here, thank you.
There's plenty of more obvious interior kit: even the £17,995 2.0X base model has cruise, climate control, aux-in stereo, fog lights and heated seats, even a heated bit of screen under the wipers, plus ESP and self-levelling. Sensible kit for an all-roads all-weather vehicle.
Being dedicated blaggers, team TG jumped in the 2.0XS, which costs another £3,900 but adds leather, alloys, a CD stacker, better hi-fi, xenons, huge sunroof, smart key and a leccy driver's seat.
The complex centre-console colour navigation-and-hi-fi screen won't be coming to the UK until they do a top-of-the-line diesel version. So, at the moment, you'd probably want to add a TomTom and some sort of Bluetooth hands-free gadget, but they cost buttons these days.
Blue dials liven up the cabin a bit, certainly more successfully than the slightly dodgy metallic trim strips in two different shades. Adding to the mild shortage of surprise-and-delight, Subaru is evidently still using up an early-1990s bulk order from the First Nippon Standard Fascia Vent and Column Stalk Works.
See, that's the trouble with the Forester. It's commendable and enjoyable and (especially when the diesel comes) an all-round good vehicle. It's a great tool, and past Subaru form shows it'll never let you down.
But it's not a piece of clothing or a lifestyle statement. Even the people who own it aren't bothered about appearances. Subaru UK staff say the buyers, who are intensely loyal, just think of it as a tall go-anywhere estate, not as some lifestyle-statement SUV. But then, the less you feel the need to make a statement about it, the more likely you are actually to have the lifestyle.
For that, I hugely admire the Forester, even though it seems to have been deliberately styled to be unloved. You could spend thousands more on a basic X3, and you'd have a worse vehicle, albeit one that did more to elevate your social status among the know-nothings.
Subaru is demanding a lot of self-confidence from you, because the Forester, by its drabness, refuses to massage your ego. Surely it would have been possible to make something smarter-looking that was just as useful and didn't cost any more?
Paul Horrell
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