This Is The Most Fun Our Readers Have Ever Had Driving In The Snow

My coworkers in New York City and Detroit got pummeled by a major snowstorm over the weekend, which wasn’t a problem for me because I live in Los Angeles where the weather has been sunny, warm, and wonderful. I empathize with them, as more than 25 years of my life were spent living somewhere that got horrible winters, but I’m so glad it’s not something I have to deal with anymore. 

While I might not like winter or winter weather, I’ve had a lot of fun driving in the snow in my life, whether that be in my day-to-day existence or on an extravagant work trip in the Arctic Circle. That brought me to my question from earlier this week, when I asked our readers to share their favorite memories of having fun driving in the snow. Y’all came up with some great answers with a wide range of cars and situations, so I’ve rounded up my favorite ones.

Post stage sweep at Sno*Drift in my WRX Wagon with brand new Hakka’s.

Winter rallies in Ontario in the early 2000s. Hit ~115 mph on a farmer’s field trying to make up time and caught a bit of air. (supercharged Corrado VR6)

Submitted by: XXLTall, TurboAWD

If you’ve never been to Sno*Drift, I highly recommend it.

One of my favorite snow driving experiences was teaching my oldest son to drive after we had a snow storm.

I took him out in the Geo Tracker he was driving and showed him how to recover from a slide, how to pitch it into a corner and steer with the back end, etc.

Of course, the next day, i had to pull him out of a ditch after he overcooked a corner “practicing”. The fact that he had his phone recording him pretending to run a rally stage was ignored.

In Alberta you can get your Learner’s permit at 14-years-old. When my son was 14 we took our RWD Tundra (old enough that there are no safety nannies) and went to the exhibition ground’s giant snow-covered parking lot. I taught him to slide, recover, drift, emergency brake on slippery surfaces. We laughed, learned, and had a couple of days of super fun bonding. When he was 20, we bought a WRX together. We went back to the parking lot and I taught him the same scenarios in an AWD snow-loving mountain goat.

Not too exciting but I came from the era of drivers ed as a class in high school. My teacher was also my math teacher but his real training was flying Hueys in Vietnam. One day I was scheduled to drive in the afternoon but a snow storm was sending us home early. Mr. Thompson said you want to try “winter driving” in the parking lot today? Sure, and what that entailed was spinning wheels, skidding, sliding, ebrake pulls and other what I felt like was fooling around. Learned a lot too. For the record it was a Chrysler/Dodge/Plymouth Spirt.

Submitted by: Stillnotatony, JohnnyWasASchoolBoy, Ben Stafford

A freak snowstorm hit during one of my first driver’s ed lessons. Sadly I was in a crappy second-gen Ford Focus and didn’t have any fun.

Downhill into a local HS parking lot, my friend’s 2WD Nissan Hardbody with a stick (and a post-it note covering the speedo after 55 MPH with ‘NO!’ not from his parents but for anyone driving to know it was not okay to go that fast in that truck with the 4-speed and everything else cobbled togther on it), bald-ish tires and seeing who could do the most donuts at speed from the hill, get out of the spins with control and get back up the hill without stalling.

Thankfully. This was the kind of parking lot for 800+ cars with only perimeter lighting.

When I was about 5 I was riding with my dad in some big ol’ Buick he had during a heavy snow. He says, “If you promise not to tell your mother I’ll show you what “doing donuts” is”. Of course I promised and the next thing I know he pulls into a a big empty parking lot, cocks it to the left while hitting the gas. We were in a complete spin and having the best time. I never did tell mom

Hands down the year I lived in Utah and had my Audi B7 S4 Avant. My four year old and I would hit up all of the LDS church parking lots on snow days and burn through a LOT of gas doing quattro drifts and donuts until we attracted too much attention to stay any longer.

Submitted by: potbellyjoe, Jimboy II The Sequel, Chris

If you haven’t done snow donuts in a parking lot, you haven’t lived.

Took the van RallyCrossing in the Detroit Region. The driving portion was so much fun. Winter tires do wonders in the snow. Shockingly under control and easy to get the rear kicked out.

Standing in an open field chasing cones in single digit weather…not as fun

Submitted by: Greasetank

Dude, hell yeah.

We had a ’63 Tempest 4-cylinder station wagon when I was a teenager and it was unstoppable in the snow, with its low power, good weight distribution and a good set of mud-and-snow tires. Fun was “douching” snowdrifts when they blew into the travel lane of country roads. The term came from the sound you made when the Tempest plowed into them at speed. Never got stuck.

Submitted by: JayByrdJr

Now that is a great new use of the word. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t post one of the most iconic automotive movie clips that is centered around the ’63 Tempest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EMok49rTw8

When I was on Active Duty USAF, we deployed to Norway in the winter for Joint Exercises at Evenes Air Station. That far north, they don’t clear the roads on base, just studded tires is all you have. Between sorties and during down time we had a ball drifting rental trucks and vans, pulling makeshift sleds behind the trucks. I don’t think one vehicle was turned in without damage.

Right around Christmas 2008 I was stationed at Ft. Drum, New York. I was stuck there during block leave because I was about to leave the Army in a couple weeks. Over night and during the day I think we got somewhere between 1 and 2 feet of fresh snow. When I was driving back to my barracks in my ’95 Yukon 4×4 I saw a very large parking lot with two or three cars, a boat, a bunch of street lights in that military-base orange glow and couldn’t resist diving straight off the road, through the ditch, across the field, and then proceeded to go through half a tank of gas doing donuts, power slides, something approaching cyclones, figure 8’s, and slalom figure 8’s from end to end between the light poles. Even saw just how close I could do donuts around the couple of cars that were parked. This parking lot is about ~200″x900″ and there wasn’t a flat square foot of slow left when I finally had enough. I’m really surprised nobody called the MPs, because I was at it for a while. One of my fondest memories I have for that truck.

Submitted by: wrecked2001, Chase

Too bad you didn’t hoon a tank around.

The year was 1993. I lived in a crappy apartment off Broadway and 39th in KC. My car was a 1972 Caprice Classic. Over a foot of white powdery snow blanketed the city. Not icy, slushy, or chunky snow, a perfect powder. Myself and three of our friends loaded into the car with cheap wine and smokable treats (not responsible or recommended). There weren’t any plows out. Few people were on the roads at all. But us, in a block long, rear wheel drive, poor performing, old rusty boat. It was unsafe. It was, indeed, more like driving a boat. We slid everywhere, miraculously not into anything. We never got stuck anywhere we couldn’t maneuver out of. All while listening to the golden oldies as the stereo was AM only. We were such idiots, but it was magical.

Submitted by: Papa Chris

I’m not endorsing this, but that does sound fun.

In like 2008 or 2009 here in the pacific northwest we got a once in a lifetime snow and ice storm that left Portland with anywhere between 9″ and 18″ of snow with ice layers. The city effectively just shut down for a week, but that didn’t stop early 30s me from driving my 2002 WRX (manual) on Yoko AVS ES100 tires all over the place, way before I had any idea how laughably unsafe that was. However, a quick scandi-flick and next thing you know you’re going down a state highway watching through the side window because you’re fully sideweays but hauling a lot of ass! How I didn’t get a ticket, a wreck, or jail time is beyond me, as I’m sure I deserved all three.

Madison, Wisconsin (USA) – Ten years ago (2016) I was working the night shift maintenance crew at the university – if it snows, we’re the first ones with the shovels. The forecast was for 6-8 inches of snow. It had already started to snow before my shift started, and most people had hunkered down for the duration just as I hit the road to go to work. I was driving my winter beater – a 2000 Ford F150, 2wd, long bed, V6, 5spd manual, work truck with winter tires and 200 pounds of salt over the rear axle – and not another vehicle in sight. I had a blast drifting, sliding, and using the whole road by myself. I almost called in to my boss and stay out on the empty roads all night, but he was counting on me to be one of the few who would be able to get to work – I should never have bragged about my snow driving skills (DAMN IT!!!)

Submitted by: Bill Reynolds, Radar Lover Gone

Having a snowy road to yourself really is magical.

Ice racing, buddy had a stripped down 240z with a welded diff and tires with big ass bolts in them not super fast but just heaps of fun

Frozen Lake Ice racing in a SAAB 96! Big spiked tires, FWD, 2-stoke high RPM noises, and constant controlled sliding out of turns! What’s not to love?

As a stupid 20yr old I took my parents 1995 Corolla with the 5-speed manual out on the frozen river near my home town with my friend (in a Maritime Province of Canada). It was perfect conditions though, had been very cold for weeks, little light layer of snow and smooth ice for kilometers (miles as well for you all in the US). So in the early even we drove several kilometers up and down this frozen river system at a high rate of speed doing 360-spins and drifts along the way with the e-brake and driving over to an island. I got caught trying to plan to go back out when my parents overheard me discussing my plan on the phone; ended that fun from happening again, haha.

Submitted by: E M Griffiths, Old_SLAAB_Guy, Jeffaulburn

Ice racing is one of the coolest forms of motorsport.

I had my daily driver head to the shop during a record snowfall winter in new england. As a result, the only car I had was my e46 M3 for a week. This was the most fun I had driving, ever. I had summer tires on the car and every time I gave it even the tiniest amount of gas it would start to break loose. The place I worked had a pretty oval shaped parking lot, so I would get there early and drift laps around the lot. The worst part, which also ended up being quite fun, was getting home. I had to do a small downhill and make a right turn on the side of a hill. More than once I had to back up and try again. Turns out the key was to just kick the car sideways and drift around the turn.

Submitted by: Levi

I don’t recommend driving with summer tires in snow, but it can lead to a lot of laughs. (And yes, I know that image isn’t an M3.)

Early morning drive home through the Yorkshire countryside after a first date. I’d gone back to her place, and only realised that it had snowed as I opened the door to leave. I could see the roads were well covered, and I was in my Brabus Roadster Coupe. Rear wheel drive, relatively fat tyres, an automated clutch, minimal ground clearance, and some steep hills. Not a great combination.

I could have used it as an excuse to stay over, but I’d fitted my winter steel wheels and tyres a few weeks before, and really wanted to try them out. It proved itself to be both huge fun and amazingly capable. I never saw her again, but I still remember the drive.

Submitted by: Matt R

If my first date showed up in a Brabus Roadster Coupe I wouldn’t ever let him leave.