Its big introduction in Los Angeles this week was the redesigned 2014 Subaru Forester, which goes on sale in the spring of 2013. It’s a fine car, somewhere in between a station wagon and an SUV. (I should disclose, I have a 2010 Forester myself. It’s my fourth Subaru in a row.)
Improvements for the redesigned model include better gas mileage – up to an EPA-estimated 32 mpg on the highway, which is unexpected for an all-wheel-drive car – plus more interior room and somewhat edgier styling.
That’s all fine. The small-SUV, tall-station-wagon, crossover segment, whatever you want to call it, is wildly popular. Even Mercedes-Benz jumped in at the high end of that range, with the Mercedes-Benz GLK. You can’t turn around in the suburbs without seeing lots of Toyota RAV4s and Honda CR-Vs, and a growing number of Hyundai and Kia equivalents.
In that company, the Forester doesn’t exactly set a lot of hearts aflutter – except that it does.
I still think the Subaru “Love” advertising campaign overstates the case. But people really do seem to have a weak spot for the brand.
Subaru is well on its way to its fourth year in a row of record U.S. sales, and its fifth consecutive sales increase. That means of course that Subaru sales kept right on rising through the last recession.
Subaru of America, based in Cherry Hill, N.J., already exceeded sales for all of last year, and it expects record sales of more than 330,000 for all of 2012.
A lot of bigger-name brands would trade some of their razzle-dazzle for some of what Subaru has going for it: a focused and widely understood brand image; a distinctive technical feature, all-wheel-drive, which other brands are not likely to copy, at least not as whole-heartedly as Subaru; high owner loyalty; plus enough demand to keep discounts to a minimum.
That may not be glitzy, but it seems to be working.
