What Is The Subaru Forester STI Sport And Where Is It Available?

The Subaru Forester symbolizes, in many ways, both the evolution of Subaru as a brand, and of the crossover SUV in general. When it first arrived for the 1998 model year, the Forester was a quirky mashup of a station wagon and an SUV, built on the bones of the Subaru Impreza and packing the company's signature AWD system.

In the late '90s, the idea of a crossover SUV was still relatively new, and the Forester was praised for its ahead-of-its-time blend of on-road handling, interior space, and surprisingly strong off-road ability. In the years since, and through multiple generations, the Forester has evolved into one of the world's most popular crossovers, leaving behind its funky, wagon shape and taking on the more conventional, and now ubiquitous, crossover profile. In our review of the 2025 Forester, we called it the "outsider that's become the establishment".

While the Forester's contemporary image is primarily one of woodsy adventure, exemplified by the extra rugged Forester Wilderness, in markets like Japan and Australia, Subaru has also offered a version called Forester STI Sport. Is the STI Sport just an appearance package, or an actual return to the Forester's high-performance adventures of the past? 

For gearheads and Subaru fans, the Forester once represented something more than just another CUV. In the 2000s, hotted-up versions like Forester STI and Forester XT took the WRX's rally-bred, turbocharged DNA, complete with a manual transmission, and poured it into the taller, more spacious Forester body shape. The result was something that many enthusiasts have wished Subaru would build again. 

Though the legendary Subaru STI name conjures up images of dirt-slinging rally cars, screaming turbochargers, and WRC titles, the recent Forester STI Sport is nothing close to that. Apart from having its dampers retuned for slightly sportier handling, the STI Sport is otherwise a normal Forester with some small cosmetic tweaks, with the the same powertrains and CVT transmission as other Foresters. 

Based on the fifth generation Forester, the STI Sport was offered in Australia, China and Japan . Subaru didn't bring the STI Sport trim to America, but given its lack of actual performance hardware and sporting appeal, it's likely not ranked high on American enthusiasts' lists of forbidden automotive fruit.

If you are one of the people disappointed that the Forester STI Sport wasn't offered in America, the closest alternative would be the Forester Sport, which gets some small cosmetic differentiations from other Foresters, just not the unique suspension of the STI Sport. 

With just 180 horsepower, there's not much actual sport found under the hood, and the lack of a more powerful engine upgrade option is something that stands out on the Forester. 

The new Forester Hybrid does improve its performance a bit, modestly elevating both the horsepower and torque figures of the standard Forester. As we found in our first-drive review, these power increases do make the Forester a little quicker and more pleasant to drive, but it's still lacking overall, and is a far cry from the high-performance turbocharged Foresters of yesteryear. 

Today's Subaru is focused heavily on the mainstream, profitable CUV market, and the likelihood of the company doing another niche Forester XT or full-blown Forester STI is quite low. Then again, given how many other companies have stopped building enthusiast vehicles altogether, we should be thankful that the WRX and BRZ are alive and well.