AW Top-10 List: Best Snow Cars
That's our long-term Mazda MAZDASPEED 3 wearing a blanket of snow earlier this week
With the biggest storm of the winter having battered the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states, most enthusiasts have packed away the Pilotis, garaged the GTO, and hung up the helmet.
But what most people don't realize is that winter brings almost as many opportunities for spirited driving as the warm months. With the right equipment (snow tires), and the right ride (anything all-wheel drive), a snowy dash can be just the thing to cure your winter blues.
Subarus and snow go hand in hand. It's no accident that the AWD Impreza has been around for almost 20 years.
More than 400 hp and all-wheel drive make the R8 an all-season supercar.
The all-wheel-drive Infiniti has enough luxury to ignore the snow, and enough bite to attack it.
Porsche 911 Carrera 4
Everyone knows the 911 can post a good lap time on dry tarmac, but it's also a fierce weapon in the wet stuff.
The diesel Touareg will get you up and over even the most stubborn drifts. It'll also hold a few snowboards on top.
The ying to the Subaru WRXs yang, the Evo has what everyone wants in the winter--snow cred.
The king of off-roading won't just tackle deserts and fjord rivers, it'll throw snow with the best of them.
Audi A4 3.2 Quattro
No winter-driving list would be complete without the Quattro. Audi's AWD is near perfect.
If you have more to cart around than adrenaline, the Bimmer Sports Wagon will get you there without a hitch.
The SX4 is the AWD bargain of the century. No other car offers four-wheel power and navigation for less money.
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(Photo by Dale Jewett.)
The vehicle is only part of the solution for driving on snow covered roads. The driver with experience and common sense is the most important part of traveling on snow covered roads. I have been driving everything from mid size cars to 18 wheelers in the last 50 years and have seen it all. Many things determine how good a vehicle can travel in snow, but the driver with common sense is the most important.
I wonder who paid for this report on Snow cars? please even back in the 70's the Motor City heavy metal would put these imports to shame! and to listen to some of these stories on how there car could get threw the huge winter snow but had to wait for a 4x4 chevy to get unstuck! OMG somebody pinch that person and wake him up! I have plowed snow for 25 years up here in Michigan, your imports always stuck in my way, My wife drives a caddy, front wheel drive and guess what no issue's and we get real snow in Michigan folks! what ticks me off the most on this report is no American auto 's are even talked about unless you get down into the comments part of this! please how stupid can people be with this marketing scam! buy one of these cars they go threw the snow, Hello the big three have been doing this for years! no issue's tis about time we start supporting America! when you start telling me a 911 can out perform and American car in the snow? Please, I hope you see threw the **** storm as I have!
A.T
Amazing how most of these cars are on the list. Here in Wisconsin we would store most of these for the winter. The writer must be from the south and assumed because they were 4WD or AWD they are the best in the snow, NOT. First most of these cars have wide track tires which tend to be the worst in the snow. These are for the most part performance type cars making them difficult to handle in snowy icy conditions. There should be all Subaru models on the list not specific to the performance oriented WRX. The Toyota Matrix AWD. There is a slew of small suvs that can be there which are really unibody car type platforms. Come on Autoweek make a real list.
I agree with Johnny, These are all imports with no clearance and big fat tires. I have a 99 Park Ave and a 05 300C. The park is front drive with Blizzak winter tires and the 300 is a rear drive only with hankook winter pike tires. In ND we have more Ice and Snow than almost any other state. MN and MI may be the exception. I have to say that I have seen almost none of the cars in your report in our whole state! The last two winters we have had record snow fall here in the central part of the state and we had no problems at all other than a few people that were bad drivers without winter tires that we had to drive arround in the roads.
And some folks on here are saying that they have one of the cars in the report and were driving around a 4x4 pickup......your idiots. When it gets real bad my 2000 F250 powerstroke with chains or without will push through about 3' of snow without and up to almost 5' deep snow if its chained up. You wouldnt even be able to find your crappy little sports car in that much snow. Get a clue.
I am sure these cars have there nitch in the market someplace, but as snow cars I am sorry, No ground clearance, no weight to them, you can not tell me that a Chevy malibu Front wheel drive can be beet by a 911, that is simply insane! and nothing more then a marketing! I have nothing against a 911, but I don't think most drivers would take there 911 out in the snow to begin with, so with all that said how valid is this report? Not! we have not even talked about Fords Line up, or Dodge's line up of adverse weather cars!
A.T
Porsche 911 Carrera 4 And I'd bet the Cadillac will drive past the stuck 911 and I'd pull him out with the Avalanche and guess what the Cadillac gets 30 mpg highway. I get best of both worlds and less gas and less ins. This ad was to sell high end cars nothing more. The real world people know better. So to the yuppies in the world get real get a life and buy American. And show some pride.
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