Sixth-Gen Subaru Forester Gains New Hybrid & Wilderness Variants

Both the sixth-gen Subaru Forester Hybrid and Wilderness have made their official landfall in the US.

After more than a year since making its debut, the sixth-gen Subaru Forester has gotten two new variants in the US market, namely the Forester Hybrid and the rugged Forester Wilderness. While the former features a new 2.5-litre ‘Boxer’ hybrid powertrain setup that provides exceptional fuel efficiency, the latter leans more towards off-road enthusiasts, featuring some extra rugged parts and bits over its vanilla twin.

We’ll start off with the Forester Hybrid, and as we mentioned above, this semi-electrified SUV is powered by a new and improved 2.5-litre flat-four nat-asp engine that hooks up to an electric motor juiced by a tiny 1.1-kWh battery pack. Combined, this hybrid boxer setup is capable of delivering 194 HP, as well as a pretty impressive fuel economy rate of 35 miles per gallon or 14.8 KM per litre of fuel on a combined cycle.

Similarly, said hybrid engine is still mated to the same Lineartronic CVT gearbox and Subaru’s proprietary Symmetrical AWD system, thus promising almost similar off-roading performance compared to its full ICE twin.

On the visual front, the new Forester Hybrid looks pretty similar to its ICE-only siblings, with the only notable difference being the ‘Hybrid’ badge primed on its front fenders and rear tailgate. In the top-spec Touring trim, the Forester Hybrid comes standard with 19-inch alloy wheels and exclusive two-tone paint options, while its onboard equipment list includes a portrait-oriented 11.6-inch infotainment screen, a fully digital instrument cluster, a premium audio system, and many more.

Moving on to the rugged Forester Wilderness, this off-road-ready SUV gets a pretty serious makeover, with the biggest highlight being its jacked-up ground clearance of 236 MM, as well as the 17-inch alloy wheels shod in all-terrain tyres. To go along with its lifted ride height, Subaru has also equipped the Forester Wilderness with front and rear skid plates, plus a slew of rugged cosmetic bits like the roof rails, plastic underbody claddings, and the Wilderness badges scattered around the exterior.

The Wilderness treatment continues inside this SUV, as the cabin is now primed with a slew of orange-hued trims and Wilderness branding, as well as a unique textured upholstery for the front dash. Tech-wise, the Forester Wilderness gets the same equipment as the Touring trim level, which includes both the aforementioned infotainment screen and digital metre cluster, and many more.

Under the hood, the Forester Wilderness uses the same 2.5-litre flat-4 nat-asp engine as other Forester variants, which is exclusively mated to the same CVT gearbox to output 180 HP. Subaru did mention that it has equipped the Wilderness model with a new transmission cooler that boosts its towing capacity to over 1,500 KG, while its rear differential gains a new temperature sensor that promises to offer “more confidence on the trails.”

The all-new, sixth-gen Subaru Forester Hybrid starts from $36,415 (RM161,737) onwards in the US market, while the price for the more rugged Forester Wilderness is poised to be announced in the near future.

Closer to home, local Subaru brand vanguard TC Subaru has yet to launch the sixth-gen Forester into our market, with the facelifted fifth-gen model still on sale today, with prices starting from RM164,288 onwards.