-78 MGB: Rear-wheel drive, but wasn’t too bad because it was light and manual transmission.
-76 Fiat 124: Same thing, RWD but manual transmission and light.
-90 Mustang GT: Very tricky. It was sort of ok once you got going, but getting going could be pretty much impossible if you were going even slightly uphill, the rear wheels would just spin, and the rear end would rotate left or right. Not good.
-97 Explorer: Truly great. It had a V8 and AWD, and it just went wherever you pointed it. Once I was on an unplowed back road during a heavy snowstorm, 5 or 6 inches of snow on the road. I stopped while going uphill and floored it, it just spun a little and went on up the hill.
-98 Contour: Front wheel drive, V6 engine, manual transmission. Pretty much goes wherever I want as long as the snow isn’t too deep. We had 5 or 6 inches of snow one year and I couldn’t back it DOWN my driveway, it was just plowing snow.
95 F-150: V8 and 4x4, goes good in 4WD but that’s to be expected. Stopping isn’t quite as good.
’76 Chevy 4x4 short bed pick up. Great. Owned it since ’78. It is currently my plow truck and is chained up on all 4 wheels.
’89 Nissan 240SX. When I moved to the mountains, I put studded snows on it all the way around. Fugetaboutit. After literally dragging it home with the plow truck after about the third time I bought an –
’84 CJ7. Studded mud terrains all around. Great in deep snow. Had snow coming over the hood once going down the driveway (very light snow). Bit of a short wheel base for highway use for my taste. So I bought a –
’93 Pathfinder. Did great. I put 230,000 miles on it and bought a –
’06 Pathfinder. This is my first winter in it. As soon as I get rid of the shit stock tires I’m confident it will do great as well. All the anti-loc brakes and traction control stuff is going to take some getting used to. Looking forward to have posi/limited slip on all 4 wheels though.
The one I’m driving right now- an '06 Honda Element, with Nokian WR-SUV tires (the stock tires suck, and I didn’t want to buy winter-specific tires). I’ve driven it in two feet of packed snow and powder up on Mt. Bachelor, and the tires barely spin.
Plus, hey- tons of room on the inside for changing into the snowboarding gear. Can’t wait 'til this weekend- the mountain’s got ten feet of snow now.
Best
1964 International Scout: Limited slip on all four wheels and weighed a metric shit ton.
Worst
1985 Pontiac Trans-Am: I thought the posi rear end would help, I was wrong. It had lots of power and the slightest hint of throttle would cause both rear tires to spin which was immediatlely followed by the rear end trying to trade places with the front end.
Currently, I drive a 1998 Jeep Cheorkee. It’s driven through anything I’ve asked of it, but it hasn’t been tested too harshly - yet.
Well, since I’ve only owned one car (my '95 Miata), that would be the best car in the snow by default.
But yes, with good tires it does surprisingly well in snow/ice, even more so if you get some more weight in the car. And apparently they did design the car such that if you have a stock configuration for the wheels (haven’t changed the tire size, etc.) you can put snow chains on it.
But I figure if the weather is bad enough that you’re contemplating putting on snow chains, best to stay at home no matter what the car.
Other cars I’ve driven in snow/ice:
'67 Mustang. (V8, auto) With good tires and enough kitty litter in the trunk, it does fairly good so long as you’re going in a straight line. If you want to turn, you’ll need to slow to a crawl to avoid sliding. But so far, as long as you can just keep your forward momentum going it hasn’t let us down yet.
'97 Intrepid. (3.5L, Sport Edition) Even with good (not snow) tires chosen for their traction and weight added, this car loves to boogie about for some reason. Too much power to the wheels, no matter how gentle you are on the accelerator, I think. In some ways I’d prefer to drive the Mustang in bad winter weather if my Miata wasn’t available for some reason.
I know my Mom would chime in with her old '65(?) Corvair for winter weather driving, as she still wistfully talks about the times when it’d be only her and the 18-wheelers on the North Dakota highways. Haven’t taken her current Corvair ('66) out in wintery weather, so can’t comment on that car.
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Probably not the “best handling” by definition but definately “most fun to drive in the snow” would have been my 82’ Toyota Corolla/Tercel hatchback manual stick.
With the stick/clutch/brake/countersteer combination I drove this car like a rally racer going through slick mud. Never once did I get in an accident or end up in a ditch through 4 Wisconsin winters commuting between school, job, and home literally drifting around street corners.
'88 Ford Bronco - a full size 4WD with a 5L V8 in it. With good tires on it, this truck could go anywhere. I even lived in it for a few months. It was “retired” a couple of years ago. The odometer read 95,000, but it had already turned over once and it was broken for the last year and a half I had it.
The absolute worst was a 2WD 4 cylinder half size GMC pickup with no weight in the ass end and next to nothing up front. You couldn’t stop it no matter how good the tires were - it just wasn’t heavy enough for them to get any traction. This was seldom a problem, though, since you couldn’t get it moving either.
My wife’s '98 Pontiac Bonneville SSE has antilock brakes and traction control. The TC is sort of reverse engineered antilock brakes. Its computer applies brake pulses to the slipping drive wheel. It is nearly impossible to get this thing to skid. Even the traditional FWD problem of dancing sideways at an icy stop light doesn’t happen.
I learned how to snowdrive before I ever got behind the wheel. My brother and I would make a few bucks helping motorists get up our hilly street. “Gently, gently, gently,” we’d tell them.
This is interesting. I had a 95 or 96 Intrepid, with 3.3L V-6, so a little less powerful, but it was an absolute breeze to drive in the snow. We once got about 20 inches of snow overnight, and the road was not plowed, and I drove my car down the road, watching my neighbor struggle to get his F-150 down the road behind me. I had Eagle GT+4 tires on it at the time.
Perhaps it was the extra power…that 3.5L V-6 was a pretty powerful engine.
1984 Pontiac Fiero 2M4. The engine was mounted just in front of the rear wheels. I put on serious snow tires, and “Pow” – Instant snowmobile. Amazing traction. The only problem was when the drifts got too deep, the whole car tended to plow up onto the snow, eventually lifting the rear wheels too far.
1980 Monte Carlo. I can’t explain it other than if it started to slide, I’d throw it up into neutral and it would stop. It was a beast too, 350 engine, and man, the parking lots I swung around in.
I’m not used to front wheel drives in the winter yet, though I’ve driven them on and off for the last five years, I’ve been driving over 13 and I want to do the neutral thing, and hubster tells me I should slightly accelerate, makes no sense in my world.
The Intrepid has traction control, and my old one didn’t, but at speeds over 20 mph, it seems to work not at all.
'90 Geo Tracker 4WD. I drove it for 13 years in Wisconsin winters and never got stuck. It was rusty and falling apart, after 13 years, but now I wish I had never sold it.
It went places that other 4WD trucks got stuck in. When I first got it people made fun of it (it was a fairly new model in 1990 - I bought it brand new), but when it made it though snow some fellow coworkers massive 4WD trucks got stuck in it earned respect.
'92 Subaru Legacy Wagon. Go anywhere, anytime, snow, freezing rain, what have you.
All-around best car I ever owned. I sold her with 216K original miles and she was still purring like a kitten.
