Subaru Forester Expands Engine Options — in Japan
Subaru is adding a 1.8-liter turbocharged four-cylinder to the Forester. Great news if you were verklempt over the discontinuation of the 250-horsepower turbo-four after 2019.
And if you live in Japan.
This mill is part of the new engine family called CB18 and makes 175 horsepower and 221 lb-ft of torque. That’s a few ponies fewer than what’s on offer in the 2.5-liter naturally aspirated four-cylinder that remains in American-market Foresters, but a nice bump in torque of 45 lb-ft. Tuned to be more fuel-efficient, the engine is in Japanese-market Forester Sport models. It was also first used in the Levorg sedan, which isn’t sold here in North America.
So it’s used in a vehicle that’s not sold here — the Levorg — and in a version of the Forester Sport that isn’t sold here (we do get a Forester Sport, but it’s different from what’s sold in Japan). Would Subaru want to spend the money on federalization and certification costs to bring this engine here for the Forester Sport and maybe the BRZ?
As per usual, the company wouldn’t comment to Motor Trend, since automakers keep their lips zipped when it comes to future product. It did say something about news being made on November 17, but that is likely to be an announcement about the next BRZ.
Which, of course, could include the 1.8 in some way. The mind reels.
[Image: Subaru]
Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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We are Levorg. You cannot purchase us.
Subaru. They can't help themselves.
As per the Subaru roadmap leaks back in August. Within the next generation, the 2.0l and 2.5l FB engine family will be switched over to 1.8l and 1.6l turbo engines.
The new CB (Concentration/Compact Boxer) engine family is designed for a smaller bore pitch to shrink the engine length. The general assumption is that they're doing this to allow for future electrification under the hood. Maybe we'll get it as a Forester hybrid turbo. Not sure how much longer Subaru can continue their boxer engines, but since their entire platform is designed for a longitudinal boxer layout so they're kinda stuck. They don't have the resource to switch over both the engine and the platform entirely to a more common transverse I4 layout or to have multiple engine/platforms.