The Honda CR-V is almost certainly going to clinch 2026 as the year someone finally beat the Toyota RAV4. That doesn't mean that the Subaru Forester is down for the count, though. Both SUVs are having a banner year. Here's how sales look, now that October is a wrap. The Forester Is Holding The Line For Subaru 2026 Subaru Forester Wilderness Early this year, sales looked shaky for Subaru, but the Forester is helping to keep the boat steady, with the SUV reporting a 26% YoY improvement for the month of October. Subaru Forester Sales 2026 October 16,094 YTD 172,570 Last October, Subaru only managed to sell 12,769 Foresters. The SUV has outperformed that number every single month this year, never dipping below 15,000 sales in a given month. The Forester has been in its sixth generation since 2024, when Subaru launched the 2025 model. The Wilderness edition didn't hit the market until late 2025, and while the off-roading trim hasn't been the Forester's sole driver of improved sales, it certainly hasn't hurt Subaru's numbers. The Honda CR-V Is Taking Gold This Year 2026 Honda CR-V TrailSport Exterior (2) At this point, it would take a miracle for anyone to pull ahead of Honda in claiming first place in the SUV sales race. The brand just reported its best October in six years, and the CR-V has been a big part of those sales, reporting a 9.8% improvement from the same month a year ago. Honda CR-V Sales 2026 October 34,815 YTD 371,659 Relatively speaking, the Subaru Forester has actually had a bigger October in 2026, improving sales by 26% from the same month a year ago, while the CR-V improved by just 9.8%. But, the CR-V is starting from a higher sales floor, and it was already moving more than twice as many units as its symmetrical-AWD competitor. Like Subaru, Honda introduced a new off-roading trim for the 2026 model year in the TrailSport Hybrid, with standard all-wheel drive and a set of all-terrain tires. As with the Wilderness trim, we don't think this was the main needle mover in the nameplate's impressive sales bump, but it definitely helped. Toyota's Absence Has Created A Lot Of Opportunity For SUV-Sellers Take a look at some of the broader trends and patterns in the market, and it's not hard to guess one of the key factors helping automakers improve their sales numbers by leaps and bounds. The Toyota RAV4 was out of production earlier this year. This created an opportunity for every automaker to try and claim a bigger piece of the SUV pie for itself. If we zoom out to a five-year view of Honda and Subaru, we find that their rivalry looks like business-as-usual. Subaru Forester Honda CR-V 2026 YTD 172,570 371,659 2025 175,070 403,768 2024 175,521 402,791 2023 152,566 361,457 2022 114,096 238,155 2021 154,723 361,271 The Subaru Forester is on track to demolish last year's sales numbers, and this will definitely be the nameplate's best sales year since it first hit the market over 20 years ago. But Subaru could double the Forester's numbers and it would still be playing catch-up with the Honda CR-V, which was always the heir apparent should the RAV4 come up short. The Forester Might Outsell The CR-V Someday (But Not Today) We don't mean to paint a defeatist picture of the Subaru Forester. The SUV starts at just $29,995 for the 2027 model year, compared to the 2027 Honda CR-V's base sticker price of $31,520. The Forester is AWD-standard, and you'll need to pay extra for that feature in a CR-V. We dig the Forester, and we always have. If there's an SUV that has all the tools to knock the CR-V off its pedestal, it's the Subaru Forester. But Honda sells around 3.7 million vehicles a year worldwide, with 1.4 million of them going to the US. Subaru sells around a million cars globally, with more than half going to the US. The bottom line is that Subaru is valued at around $12 billion as of late 2026. Honda is valued at around $45 billion. If you want to compete with a brand as big as Honda, you need to find a niche that Honda hasn't explored. That being said, we should take a moment to consider that Subaru is around a quarter the size of Honda, but it's selling nearly half as many units of its flagship compact crossover. If that's not an example of an automaker punching above its weight class, we don't know what is. It may not be a David and Goliath story, but it's at least Rocky and Apollo Creed. Sources: Honda, Subaru.
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Liked by Oliver Martin, Grace Rogers
