QOTD: Ultimate Blizzard Vehicle
A huge percentage of the country is under some sort of winter storm watch or warning right now. Here in Chicago, it appears the amount of snow we're going to get will be easily manageable but the temps are supposed to be very, very cold.
Naturally, the state of Mother Nature has provided me with a QOTD layup: What vehicle would you pick if you needed to travel by road today? Let's keep this to standard OEM vehicles -- otherwise, you all would pick snowplows and whatever you call those big beasts with track-type tires that ferry Nic Cage and Sean Bean to the buried ship at the beginning of National Treasure.
So, what OEM vehicle is going to be your choice? A hulking three-quarter-ton pickup? A Hummer EV? A full-size three-row BOF SUV? Or are you going to go the fun route and pick a RWD sports car with the intent of doing donuts until you get stuck?
Sound off below.
[Image: LeManna/Shutterstock.com]
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Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.
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In winter I switch my 4Runner TRD OFF RD from KO2s to Blizzaks in this upstate NY hilly collegetown. No problems ever. Yet.
Just drove about 40kms through this current storm. In the same FWD 'mid sized' SUV with winter tires that I used to drive through the 'Snowmagedon' of early 2022. Like others I learned how to drive in old style cars. First rear engined air cooled VWs. Which for their era were spectacular in the snow. "What the guy who drives the plow drives to work." Then on V8 powered RWD large domestics, mostly PLCs. We routinely went or took our newly licensed friends to large malls at night or on Sundays (Ontario law in those days prohibited Sunday shopping) and practiced donuts, fishtailing, emergency stops, etc. The police would often see us and drop by and give us tips on driving in emergency conditions rather than stop us. I have only been 'stuck' 3 times in nearly 50 years. Twice in AWD/4wd vehicles. Every time that I have been stuck it was my own fault for 'pushing things'. Never used winter tires until my children started driving. Put them on for their safety and now would not own a vehicle without a set of winter tires. For my mother who stopped driving in bad weather we bought 'all weathers' which are snow rated and adequate in most winter weather. People often forget or disregard the importance of a good defrost/defog system and winter wiper blades. It is days like today that make purchasing the big ticket AWD/4WD seem 'worthwhile'. Like the day that you make that insurance claim for a once in a lifetime event that you have been paying premiums on for years. The best vehicle is one that gets you there safely, that is good enough that you are not white knuckling, but not so big that you 'push things' and feel overconfident.
K5 Blazer with proper tires...
Honda Ridgeline