NEW YORK MOTOR SHOW: New Subaru Forester teased

Less than a day after Toyota released a teaser shot of its all-new RAV4 and announced it will debut at this month’s New York motor show, Subaru has done the same with its next-generation Forester.

Due on sale in Australia “during the final third of 2018” (September at the earliest), the new Subaru Forester is pictured here for the first time ahead of its world premiere on March 28 – 4:45am AEST on March 29.

Beyond this tightly cropped image of its tail-light, which reveals an edgy protruding lens cluster housing a C-shape brake light, no information has been released about the new Subaru Forester.

However, it’s guaranteed to ride on the same Subaru Global Platform (SGP) as the latest Impreza small-car family, and to be powered by a range of flat-four petrol and diesel engines driving all four wheels via a CVT automatic transmission and Symmetrical AWD.

That should make it more powerful, more efficient and more dynamic, but it remains to be seen whether the next Forester will be available with Subaru’s next-generation EyeSight driver-assist technologies that, by 2020, will include autonomous cruise control.

It’s also unclear whether the replacement for the popular Subaru Forester will be offered with a hybrid powertrain – potentially in the form of a Toyota-sourced inline four-cylinder petrol-electric system.

Apart from the new Toyota RAV4, which will be offered in hybrid form for the first time in Australia, the 2019 Subaru Forester will renew its fight with the Mazda CX-5 and Hyundai Tucson in the big, booming mid-size SUV segment.

Both the Forester and RAV4 were once top-sellers in the segment, but have long been usurped by the CX-5, Tucson and (in the case of the Forester, sales of which were down seven per cent last year), Nissan X-TRAIL, Mitsubishi Outlander and Kia Sportage, with the new Honda CR-V and Volkswagen Tiguan right behind.