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Subaru says Forester logs 8,000 JDM orders in first month, 4x expectations

The 2014 Subaru Forester is not on sale yet here in the US, but it has been on sale in Japan since the middle of last month. In that time, Subaru says that the 8,149 customer orders it has received have more than quadrupled the original expectation of just 2,000 units.
To go along with these impressive orders so far, Subaru has also provided a breakdown of exactly what initial customers are ordering, and based on the numbers provided, it would appear that early customers are choosing well-equipped models. This includes almost 90 percent of all models being ordered with the new Subaru EyeSight system, and while close to two-thirds of the Forester models are equipped with the base 2.0-liter engine, the turbocharged Forester 2.0XT is the most popular individual trim level accounting for almost 40 percent of the orders out of four available trim levels. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues as more Foresters hit dealers, but this is definitely a good sign for the compact crossover right out of the gate.
There's a brief press release after the jump that gives a full breakdown of customer orders so far in Japan.

Subaru takes another look back, this time at the 2004 WRX STI

Here we have the followup to the rally-mimicking Impreza 22B STI that Subaru recently chronicled in its Vintage Garage series: the 2004 Impreza WRX STI. Displacement for the boxer four was upped from 2.2 liters to 2.5, and after noticing how many buyers had installed larger turbochargers on their WRXs, Subaru decided to bolt on one in-house. That gave the final product 300 horsepower and a 0-to-60 mile-per-hour run of just 4.6 seconds.
It was stiffer, it's body from nose to front doors was penned by Peter Stephens, he of the McLaren F1, it came with a driver-controlled center differential, driver-activated cooling spray for the turbos and 300 pound-feet of torque. This is a curio from a time when, after a new WRX STI came out, you started poring through magazines to see how the Mitubishi Evo was going to respond. You can find out more about it in the video below.

Climb to the Clouds returning thanks to Subaru title sponsorship [w/video]

The Mt. Washington Hillclimb, otherwise known as the Climb to the Clouds, hasn't been done since 2011. That year, Subaru Rally Team USA driver David Higgins set a new record for the event first held in 1904, running the 7.6-mile vertiginous course in 6:11.54. The race will be return in 2014 with the help of that very carmaker, Subaru of America having stepped in to the title sponsor role for what will be the Subaru Mt. Washington Hillclimb.
Taking place from June 26-29, 75 modern and vintage cars will spend three days racing up the 6,288-foot-high mountain. It's not as long nor as high as Pikes Peak, but it does have something that the Colorado competition doesn't: gravel; about 13 percent of the Mt. Washington Carriage Road still hasn't been paved.
If you want to know what a record-breaking run up the northeast's highest peak looks like, check out Higgins behind the wheel in the video below.