2011 Subaru Limited on 2040-cars

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Subaru calls Forester Ultimate Customised Kit Special edition 'an unfortunate situation'

UPDATE: Subaru of America reportedly found it necessary to disavow itself from the Forester Ultimate Customised Kit Special edition that was displayed at this year's Singapore Motor Show. According to The Drive, the automaker sent a letter to its American dealership network to explain that it "had nothing to do with this" and that "it obviously goes without saying that this car will not be available in the United States market." Lead image courtesy of imgur. Subaru likely brought several serious concepts to this year's Singapore Motor Show. We sincerely hope that this is not one of them.  Meet the Forester Ultimate Customised Kit Special edition (little "e"). If you're old enough to be on the Internet, you certainly know exactly where this is going, and it's not anywhere appropriate.  In this lighting, it's hard to tell, but the F***S edition appears to be finished in Subaru's World Rally Blue, and the pin-striping is very likely STI's signature cherry blossom pink, but we frankly cannot tear our eyes away from the podium, which is emblazoned with the custom Forester's name. As Top Gear Philippines points out, it's otherwise a fairly generic show car. From the body kit that gives it a low-slung attitude to the custom paint work, nothing about the F***S edition appears out of the ordinary. It's even rocking a set of 20-inch Enkei wheels over yellow brake calipers.  We're not sure what exactly is going on under the hood, but we wouldn't be surprised to find the normal host of bolt-on factory and aftermarket power-adders, or maybe even a full-blown STI powertrain just for extra cred.  Inside, it has yet more of the trappings of a run-of-the-mill SEMA build. A huge touchscreen up front controls a custom audio system backed up by Focal amplifiers and a subwoofer. There's custom blue ambient lighting in the front cabin and a set of tablet-style monitors for rear passenger entertainment.  The execution leads us to believe that either its builders had no clue, or they simply gave no... well... you know. 

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.

Toyota, Honda, Nissan and more collaborating to increase fuel efficiency

Toyota, Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Subaru, Mitsubishi, Suzuki and Daihatsu have announced an alliance that will see a push to improve fuel economy from both gas-powered and diesel-powered engines by as much as 30 percent before the end of the decade.
The newly assembled Research Association of Automotive Internal Combustion Engines put the roughly $20-million project together, with the Japanese government committing to half the cost while the eight manufacturers will chip in the rest.
According to Automotive News, the automakers will team up and share basic research on internal-combustion engines in a bid to cut costs. Eventually, the results of the research will find its way into a production vehicle, although it's unclear just when we'll see the fruits of this partnership on the road.