On paper and in pictures, the new Forester interested me. It looks pretty good, offers stability control as standard, and should offer Subaru reliability. My drive last night revealed a slightly different story. It is a bummer that you can no longer get a manual transmission with the turbo engine and that the automatic only has four gears. Plus, the new Forester is based on the new Impreza so the not-so-fantastic dynamics come along for the ride. There is annoying kickback through the steering wheel over mid-corner bumps, and I feel like the wagon sport-ute morph has lost some of its sporting character. It feels very soft, especially give this is the turbo model. Plus, I still find the plastics and design inside the Forester (similar to the Impreza) to be less than great. It just feels a bit cheap. I'll make my final assessment once we get to drive a base manual version, but I'm not yet sold on the new Forester.