This time of year a tsunami of “car of the year” awards proliferate the interweb and leach their way into prime time morning telly, and I’d rather watch concrete set, mostly because they get it wrong.
Too many say they want performance, yet when they’re given it, practicality has disappeared; ditto the reverse.
So-called rating systems put cars down for not being comfortable enough, or not prioritising safety, or chastise a brand for not adding enough luxury features – and above all else, they never run short of breath whining about a car being too expensive, or they disregard cost when the consumer isn’t the remit.
One award winner in early 2019 was supposedly best car on sale in “Straya”, yet it was a small luxury SUV starting at $45k and smacking into a $57,000 ceiling before on-road costs; and only its top-spec all-wheel drive variant has been crash-tested, you only get a space-saver spare wheel, basic cruise control (not the adaptive kind without optioning), and $990 for 360-degree camera even on the $57k top-spec, on a “luxury” SUV claiming to be one of the safest on the roads seems misguided.
How can that be the best new car option for Australian families offloading their actual hard-earned money?
Subaru sold 1500 Foresters last month and the up-market competitor only sold 200, and you can extrapolate those numbers out to annual sales.
But the 2.5i-S specifically does something special.
Where its longer brethren the Outback 3.6R and L models have a mechanical growl upon start-up, the Forester S is a properly snarling machine that warns the soft-roading pretentious aristocracy to kindly get out of the way.
The Forester remains one of the best-selling mid-size SUVs on the market for a reason, and the S revives a character trait missing far too long from the Subaru range – the hot GT.
There was once a time you could barely hear a Forester GT burbling up the street before it whooshed by in a blur of faded jungle green and you’d catch a glimpse of that orange GT badge on the left-hand side of the tailgate.
It may wear a different name, but my week-long test courtesy of Subaru Australia, revealed the 2.5i-S is actually a GT underneath.
Living in automotive exile, trapped in the industry’s equivalent of Tom Hanks’ The Terminal, unable to reveal its true self or declare its good intentions to be a no-holds-barred raggedy, rugged enthusiast’s SUV, the Forester S cannot be officially declared a GT.
This is a terrible tragedy because on the winding foreshore road between the Mornington Peninsula’s Safety Beach and Mount Martha, when you miraculously have no traffic in front and the undulations, lefts, and rights simply open out in front of you – the S reveals its true colours.
The “S” button tempers it.
You get a touchier throttle response that is much sharper than the L or base model and you certainly feel the potential speeds attainable with one of – if not the – best-developed all-wheel drive systems on the market.
None of that waiting until you’ve already lost grip on a slightly gravel surface – having ultimate potential traction at all times means you can reverse the jetski down the famous Safety Beach boat ramp at the Yacht Club and Mount Martha Marina without under-cooking it in front of all the hot, impatient Jeeps, LandCruisers and Rangers waiting.
I implore someone in the caper of motoring reviews and their subsequent awards to finally give the Forester the adulation it damn-well deserves.
It has so much boot space – 498 litres seats up and 1768 litres seats down – it is only pipped by the vast Chevrolet-based Holden Equinox and Jeep Cherokee.
You can reach the top tether anchor point with one (short) arm over the top of the seat without having to unpack the and climb into the boot, vision is excellent especially through the crisp high-quality rearview camera, and the seats are weirdly comfortable.
How much more evidence is needed?
Its 1.5 tonnes of towing capacity may not make it the heaviest hauler in the class, but it doesn’t need to be since even a single-axle Jayco Crosstrak caravan weights just 1350kg with a 150kg downball weight right on the Forester’s allowable limit.
But the Forester’s glace cherry is its EyeSight safety assistance system which is still second to none.
The 2020 Forester feels even better again than the MY19, which admittedly could have been having driven the resident MY18 Outback a lot recently.
Either way, something felt very different driving Forester S on freeways, residential streets, and that twisty beach road.
A set of Bridgestone Duellers in highway variant tested here never give any suggestion of not keeping up with demand, and a set of all-terrains would only add to Forester’s prowess for getting that little bit further up the trails or scaling the slippery boat ramps.
Not wanting to further inflate Subaru’s tyres in any way, there’s an instinctiveness and seamlessness about the dance moves as you take off from the lights, accelerate, enter the freeway, blend into at-speed traffic, change lanes, flick-on adaptive cruise (and EyeSight’s subsequent primed-and-ready features) and overtake traffic en route to the beach.
It’s as if there’s been even more R&D invested into making EyeSight (version 2020) communicate even better with the CVT, throttle and engine, without becoming some over-compensating flashing, beeping and “all-hands-to-battle-stations” piece of false-positive inducing junk.
A particular favourite is that, in keeping with its GT-in-spirit retro-inspiration, there’s a CD player ready to welcome Daryl Braithwaite’s The Lemon Tree or Linkin Park’s Hybrid Theory.
Speaking of which, there’s even an “e-Boxer” hybrid engine for Forester supposedly coming next year which will make this car even more of a compelling family SUV offering.
The Forester may not beat its chest or strut its stuff like the rest of the SUV horde, and it certainly doesn’t get the so-called best car adulations it has earned in its clever packaging, top-notch safety and realistic pricing, but think how easily we forget what a brilliant actor Tom Hanks really is.
If I had a 2019 Car of the Year award to don, and I can say this without taking a single cent from brand advertising, it would be the Subaru Forester 2.5i-S, for reminding us why the GT was so loved and managing to be Woody to the Buzz Lightyears in mid-size SUVs.
