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Front wheel drives cars are much easier to drive competently in the snow but it's only rear wheel drive cars that let you drive as an expert.
Particularly your 944 ought to be great in the slick if you have good tires. Those things have very good weight distribution. All you need to do is get used to the different way rear wheelers handle and respond to power and braking.


Oh, yeah....Glad you didnt get dead!!

Last edited by Pariah (2007-12-17 5:03 pm)

ShnickyShnack wrote:

:: considers going out to practice ::

Hah, if there were snow outside, you can bet your ass that I would not be inside right now.

I used to fishtail it down my dirt road in my rwd datsun 510. the road was maybe a 1/4 of a mile long. I've made it over half way once or twice.

when snowboarding I would pull into the (empty) resort parking lot, pull up the ebrake and jam on the gas in my front wheel drive escort. it's amazing how far you can slide sideways.

and any time it would snow I would find an empty parking lot to spin donuts in.

I figure that if you don't do it on purpose then you won't know what to do when it happens on accident.

I spun out in the rain in a '79 Toyota Corolla in Richmond, VA going around Stuart Circle on Monument Avenue. Like the OP, I had this surreal moment of detachment as I watched my surroundings revolve around me like a merry-go-round, then I came to rest facing oncoming traffic, the rear bumper of my car mere inches from the cars parked along the curb.

So, yeah... reading the original post brought that experience back to me in a big way.

I wish that they would put that geckosurface stuff on tyres.
then again, I only have a learners so far.
::can't wait until he turns 16 in April::

I think I mentioned it about six months ago, and someone on [s]this forum[/s] MAF said that he had socks older than me.

A friend of mine had this tale to tell:

He was driving down the Autobahn at a moderate (for West Germany) speed when he hit a patch of black ice that was in the shade of trees in a curve. Spun around the car at least once before leaving the pavement, then rolled the car sideways four or five times in the grassy edge next to the Autobahn, finally landing rightside up. Somehow he didn't have a scratch on him despite the fact that he had two empty pony kegs of beer in the rear seat. He was sitting there a bit dazed in wonder over what had happened when a car driver came up to him to see how he was (there is a Good Samaritan law in Germany: you MUST stop to give assistance). The other driver breathed a sigh of relief because he really did fear what he might have seen, considering that he had watched the accident as it happened in a car behind my friend.

After the police came to take a report of the accident, my friend had to spend about a hour picking up his company's brochures that had spilled out.

Not to mention there is definitely something to be said about being pushed around instead of being pulled.  I strongly prefer rear wheel drive.