Subaru Forester XTI Concept - First Drive Review
BY STEVE SILER, PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE DITZ AND THE MANUFACTURER
April 2009
Here at Car and Driver, there are many among us who harbor fetishes for the unexpected, the ironic, and of course, the stupidly fast. It’s all the better, of course, if a vehicle combines all three qualities. Not surprisingly, most of us love fearsome cargo carriers like the Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG wagon, the silly Jeep Grand Cherokee SRT8, and the dearly departed Dodge Magnum SRT8. Basically, count us in for anything that has no business being fast but is anyway.
And so we were all over Subaru’s invitation to Willow Springs racetrack near Lancaster, California, to chuck a few laps in one of last year’s SEMA specials: the Forester XTI concept, which is basically a Forester crossover with WRX STI running gear. Since the car isn’t street-legal—and there aren’t enough people like us who could prompt Subaru to actually build something like this for real—this probably will be our only chance to drive it and to see if Subaru can transform the innocuous Forester’s package into something as beguiling as the STI.
Before we even turned the key, we were on board. Having grown quite a bit for 2009, the standard Forester has a more-SUV-like profile than ever, but in XTI form—slammed and wearing the STI’s optional silver 18-inch wheels and a bitchin’ black-to-brown paint job—the Forester suddenly looks hot, like that nerdy chick in high school who one day swapped mom jeans for hot pants.
When Subaru claims the Forester XTI “combines the versatility of the Forester 2.5XT with the all-out street performance of the rally-bred Impreza WRX STI,” it means just that. The automaker’s Subaru Performance Tuning team literally combined the two cars as an experiment “to see how many STI parts would fit,” according to SPT representative Adam Woodhull.
SPT started by taking one Forester and one STI, stripping each to the metal, and adding STI pieces to the Forester bit by bit. Since the two cars share a platform, the engine, the six-speed manual transmission, and the STI drivetrain weren’t too difficult to swap over. The cat-back stainless-steel exhaust system had to be massaged in place and fitted with sexy tip extensions (they stick out too far to be legal), but most parts were sourced from SPT and not fabricated. The new exhaust system freed up another 10 hp and 10 lb-ft of torque compared with the stock STI, according to Subaru, so the XTI is good for 315 hp and 300 lb-ft. The only other area of customization involved the new Forester’s unequal-length control-arm rear suspension, which required some minor fittings.
SPT then stuck the STI’s dash and center console into the Forester, as well as the STI’s Alcantara-covered Recaro sport seats. The XTI’s front clip and mesh grille are out of the Subaru of America accessories catalog, and the side and rear addenda are available from Japan’s version of same. The paint job, on the other hand—a four-coat process that required three metallic colors, including the SPT script on the sides—isn’t available anywhere but your local body shop. And they probably couldn’t do it as well.
VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, 4-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, 5-door wagon
ESTIMATED PRICE AS TESTED: $60,000
ENGINE TYPE: turbocharged and intercooled DOHC 16-valve flat-4, aluminum block and heads, port fuel injection
Displacement: 150 cu in, 2457cc
Power (SAE net): 315 bhp @ 6000 rpm
Torque (SAE net): 300 lb-ft @ 4000 rpm
TRANSMISSION: 6-speed manual
DIMENSIONS (C/D EST):
Wheelbase: 103.0 in Length: 179.5 in Width: 70.1 in Height: 61.9 in Curb weight: 3600 lb
PERFORMANCE (C/D EST):
Zero to 60 mph: 5.0 sec
Standing ¼-mile: 13.8 sec @ 100 mph
FUEL ECONOMY (C/D EST):
EPA city/highway driving: 16/22 mpg