I’ve been managing rear-drive cars in Canadian winters since I learned how to drive. I shredded AE86, TE72, and AW11 everywhere before I bought my first AWD car. RNN14, ST185H, GDA were an easy button for winter driving. I thought I would never go back.
There is something so satisfying about managing a rear driver in the winter though. In theory, provides a layer of control that an AWD machine does not. I’ve had fun running our JCE10 around town.
Our UCK45 Sequoia, however, has always been reserved for long voyages into Alberta’s wastelands. It’s not friendly out there. When temperatures drop to -40 it is quite literally life or death for car and driver alike. The Sequoia recently suffered serious wounds when a rear airbag split and a front shock ruptured while jumping an icy railroad track crossing. That left me in the Lexus while new bags and Bilstein’s were sourced.
It was not a good time.
Icy city roads at 80kph are completely different from ragged, windswept winter highways with tractor-trailers on-coming at 110kph 1 meter to your left. Perhaps my desire to get home safely has leveled up a few notches since I was 20 and sideways in a 20-year-old shitbox. Perhaps I’m not as stig as I used to be. Or perhaps the Lexus is trying to puke it’s green Tein coilovers out from under itself… begging for Bilstein’s and studded Bridgestones of its own.
Heroes never die. Gear up and embrace the suck!
I didn’t always 4H the Xterrible in the winter. But when I did, it was for self preservation.