2019 Forester - News on the Next Generation

From it's inception in the late 90s, the Forester has been a standout staple of the Subaru lineup over the years.  It's been a class leader in reviews with each generation and is still the only vehicle to have landed MotorTrend's "SUV of the Year" award twice.  As such, the Forester is coming up on completing it's design cycle for this bodystyle and will be switching over to it's new 5th Generation design in October of 2018.  Here's a rundown of what we know now, as well as handling some speculation surrounding the latest incarnation of the beloved Forester.

The 2019 Subaru Forester will be built around the Subaru Global Platform (SGP), which already carries the Impreza and Crosstrek platforms currently.  Reductions in noise, vibrations, and ride harshness are noticeable improvements in the current models, so the Forester should easily follow suit with these kinds of changes.  New for the 2019 Forester will be a Direct-Injected Naturally Aspirated 2.5l Boxer Engine with a slight bump in power.  A Continuously Variable Transmission will send power through it's Symmetrical All-Wheel Drive system.  The new Forester exterior design shows that the window lines retain their boxy shape, much like previous generations, to continue it's excellent reputation for having stellar interior visibility.  More aggressive lines around the lower portion of the doors and around the fenders continue Subaru's latest designs.

Early Viziv Concept

The rumor mill has been spinning about the possibility of the 6-Speed Manual Transmission option going away.  If that's true, the Forester would be the third vehicle in Subaru's lineup to lose this feature, following the Outback and Legacy which did away with it in 2015.  With the market focusing more on pre-collision technology, it's likely that Subaru would follow suit and include EyeSight as standard equipment in the next-gen Forester.  EyeSight currently only works on vehicles equipped with a CVT, so the Manual would be phased out in favor of an All-EyeSight offering for the '19 Forester.

However, this has not been the case with the Subaru Crosstrek, which just picked up a new 6-speed option for it's latest version released earlier this year.  The Crosstrek was also marketed in other markets to have "all vehicles with EyeSight", but the US Market did not, so there's a chance that whatever rumor is spinning for the Forester losing it's manual transmission could be based on other markets.  The Forester is still currently sold with a 6-Speed option for the 2.5i (base) and 2.5i Premium models.  While demand is low in general for manual transmission vehicles these days, this is still a defining trait of the Forester when customers are looking for an All-Wheel Drive small SUV, so it would be surprising to see Subaru drop this option for the sake of saying that "all Foresters come with EyeSight".