QOTD: AWD to the (Sales) Rescue?

With Labor Day in the rearview, the grim prospect of winter now rears its ugly head. For many of you, it’s no big deal. It might rain. You’ll have to put on a light jacket before leaving the house. For others, Mother Nature awaits with several gigatons of snow and ice.

Suddenly, that two-wheel drive vehicle that served your needs just fine throughout the summer is no longer king of the road. Sufficient, sure, but not ideal. Bringing all wheels online would improve your car’s winter prowess and boost driver confidence (possibly by too much of a degree), yet few passenger car makers think of adding it to models lacking boxy, cargo-happy bodies.

If AWD is something you covet, would its presence sway you away from a crossover and into a normal car?

Clearly, this question doesn’t apply to Subaru buyers.

As passenger car sales fall, some automakers have begun sweetening the pot with lower-end hatches and sedans outfitted with four-wheel motivation. Mazda added it to its next-generation 3 for 2019, as did Toyota with its Prius AWD-e. The former sports a mechanical connection; the latter, an electrical one. There’s also AWD coming to the Mazda 6 in the near future.

Of course, move way up the ladder and you’ll find a bevy of premium automakers, especially the German ones, ready and willing to toss you AWD for extra cash. The rekindled interest among more pedestrian makes is a relatively recent thing, a tactic aimed at boosting appeal and slowing the models’ sinking sales trajectories.

While essentially useless in normal, dry-road driving (added weight and reduced fuel economy is a strike against it), AWD is something you might want if FWD plow cramps your go-fast manner of driving — especially if dirt and gravel outweighs asphalt in your neck of the woods. If you’re in the snow belt, getting up to speed will become a breeze with AWD, assuming you’re not a dick who keeps his or her worn summer rubber on year-round. Yet in the case of the Mazda and Toyota, adding AWD doesn’t turn your vehicle into a bounder-leaping, creek-fording off-road brute. It doesn’t turn either vehicle into a taught Teutonic sports sedan, either, though Mazda earns kudos for its commitment to fun-to-drive.

Is there car out there, either FWD or RWD, that you’d actually feel compelled to buy if the automaker offered it with four-wheel motivation?

[Image: © 2019 Chris Tonn/TTAC]