Winter Is Only Solidifying My Desire to Drive Rear-Wheel-Drive Cars for the Rest of Time

I’m beginning to worry that many vehicles I once fervently desired to own will never again appear on my shortlist of possible daily drivers.

These vehicles, from the Volkswagen Golf GTI and Ford Fiesta ST to the Audi S4 and Porsche Macan and numerous others in between, possess one of two common traits. Their internal combustion engines send power either to the front or all four wheels.

I don’t want to be that guy; I don’t want there to be any hint of sounding like this. You know the kind of guy I’m talking about: a real, living, breathing version of the 14-year-old forum addict who, never having driven any car of any kind, suffers all manner of teenage angst over the very notion that BMW sells all-wheel-drive M cars while scolding Ford for emasculating the Mustang GT350R with electronic aids.

But a hard-hitting winter manifested itself early on Prince Edward Island, and I’m worried that the fun quotient exhibited by a 2013 Scion FR-S could never be replicated by a front or all-wheel-drive car.

Who’d’ve thunk that winter, a snowy and bitterly cold early winter at that, would be the event that (potentially) precipitates long-term FR-S ownership?

It’s not as though I acquired a low-mileage 2013 FR-S with the intention of holding onto it until my children grew old enough to drive it, as I did with a 2004 Miata that I sold 13 months after buying it. Recognizing my personal shortcomings and scanning past purchases – the 13-month Miata, the 3-year Honda Odyssey, the 3-year Kia Sorento, a 2-week Honda Civic many moons ago – made me realize the FR-S would likely hang around for a bit and then depart in favor of something different.

As summer turned to fall, with below-average temperatures and rainfall totals that made the Island’s potato harvest a nightmare, miserable weather made me appreciate the Miata/FR-S switch.

Then, seemingly in a moment, the bizarrely wet autumn that turned everything to muck became a frigid winter that turned everything to frozen tundra. A quick switch to winter tires allowed me to beat the snow by a couple of hours, and then I was ushered into the unknown.

Oh, it wasn’t completely unknown. I’d driven plenty of rear-wheel-drive cars in the winter, including a fun week of icy roads in a 2015 Ford Mustang. But I’d never lived with a rear-wheel-drive car in the winter, let alone a tail-happy 2+2 drifter like the FR-S. I’d yet to fully experience a proper PEI winter, either, as the winter of 2017/2018 was pitifully light on snow (or dirt, as many Islanders call it.)

Yet here we are in late 2018 with multiple significant snowfalls, temperatures cool enough to leave some less-travelled roads partially covered in snow and ice, and no sign of abatement. Far from letting me down or sending me sideways through every intersection (unless so desired) the FR-S simply highlights the benefits of balance. Officially, the Toyobarus are 53/47 cars – that’s 53 percent of the weight on the front; 47 on the rear.

But there’s more to balance than a pair of numbers on a spec sheet. Balance also relates to ride quality that’s on the tolerable side of stiff, steering that’s accurate and perfectly weighted, a reasonably well-modulated throttle, and to a friendly clutch and short-throw shifter that make unexpected gear changes uneventful.

This is not to suggest that I can blast through drifts like a 4Runner, nor do I expect to drive home from work when accumulations, well, accumulate faster than expected. That’s what coworkers with ride height are for. In all other scenarios, however, my right foot is the controller of how much traction I want to possess. And yes, on the right road or in the right parking lot, I often wish to break traction, and I wish to do so all evening. That is one of the benefits of balance.

Balance, of course, is not something that goes hand-in-hand with every jacked-up pickup truck, the truck that’s too often driven by an individual who doesn’t recognize that multiple extra car lengths are required to come to a halt and that the truck’s centre of gravity is miles high. Nor is balance the first word that comes to mind for Ford Escapes, shod in all-season rubber, that can’t climb the hill out of Hunter River.

“But it’s an all-wheel-drive ess-you-vee!”

To be fair to my old vehicular wishlists, stuffed with fun front and all-wheel-drive vehicles, it is only November. For all I know, and against all odds, this winter could turn into a copy of 2014/2015, when roads near my current homestead were often impassable, to say the least. I could live to regret this commitment I’ve made to a low-slung rear-wheel-drive sports car.

Or, if the prevailing sensations predominate, the FR-S will be second in an unending line of RWD daily drivers.

Hot hatches? Fuggedaboutem. S-badged Audis? Who needs ’em. Hi-po SUVs? Perish the thought.

[Images: Timothy Cain/TTAC]

Timothy Cain is a contributing analyst at The Truth About Cars and Driving.ca and the founder and former editor of GoodCarBadCar.net. Follow on Twitter @timcaincars and Instagram. No, the pictured tracks from 11.18.2018 were not created by the FR-S.