First look: Refining Forester

AFTER a quiet period since 2003’s fourth-generation Liberty and Outback launch, the next 12 months will be fairly busy for Subaru in Australia despite the B9’s protracted birth.

July will herald a redesigned Forester, which receives its first big makeover since the second-generation model’s mid-2002 launch.

It will feature an all-new nose, a redesigned tailgate, a stiffer body, better gearboxes, improved engine performance and efficiency, a refreshed cabin and more standard features.

Later in the third quarter, a significantly revised Impreza will also be introduced.

This will be an extensive re-fettling of the current-generation car introduced at the end of 2000 and overhauled just two years later.

Related to the Forester, it should pick up most of the smaller 4WD’s improvements to make it more competitive against the rest of the small-car brigade, which are all significantly newer.

Nevertheless, Subaru hasn’t been standing still with the Impreza. Its special-edition GX model released late last year has been more successful than the company anticipated. A new batch to satiate demand is arriving shortly from Japan.

An automatic version of the Liberty GT Spec B is also set for release soon, along with a round of minor alterations to the rest of the Liberty and Outback range for 2006.

Production for these begins in June, with shipments forecast to arrive from August.