SUBARU may not have invented the current crop of car-based compact SUVs – thank Toyota’s RAV4 for that – but it may well be the first that truly puts the sport into Sport Utility Vehicle. The new Forester XT produces enough power (155kW at 5600rpm) and torque (320Nm at 3600rpm) to scare many a sports car – particularly when you factor in its commendable power-to-weight ratio of 9.19kW per kilogram. Its claimed 6.4 seconds to 100km/h acceleration time (regular Forester 2.5: 9.9 seconds) says it all...

Subaru Forester GT
Released: September 1998
Ended: July 2002
Family Tree: ForesterSUBARU'S 2004 Forester XT turbo is the spiritual successor to the Forester GT turbo sold in Australia from September 1998 - about a year after the original Forester went on sale here. It featured a 125kW/240Nm turbo four, while the MY01 version launched in December 2000 upped performance to 130kW/245Nm. The arrival of Forester MkII in July 2002 heralded the loss of a turbo Forester until the current XT version tested here was released in August 2003.
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