<VV> Corvairs in the Winter

[Vairtec Corporation]

I have been driving the Greenbrier I own today since 1969.  But 
somewhere around 1975 I stopped driving it on salt-covered roads.

When I did drive it in the winter, it was equipped with four studded 
show tires and, since it has Posi, it was darn near unstoppable.  (There 
is still some body damage under the front bumper from the frozen 
snowbank that succeeded in stopping it one winter night.)

Near my home at the time there is a narrow and very steep road that is 
the first to be barricaded and closed when there is a snowstorm.  
However, this road is also a significant shortcut and I was not about to 
let several inches of snow and a police barricade send me the long way 
'round.  I chugged up that road, and when I got to the top, a guy 
walking his dog called out, in all seriousness, "Does that thing have 
four wheel drive?"

I owned a different Greenbrier during the 1980s and during one 
particularly bad storm I put a set of tire chains on it.  Katie bar the 
door!  It was like driving on clear roads.

Of course, if I may boast, I think I am a much better snow driver than 
most people.  More recently, I drove my two wheel drive S-10 pickup -- 
certainly no one's idea of a snowmobile -- over a closed mountain road 
during a blizzard, passing all the stuck SUVs.  I set no speed records, 
and periodically I had to stop, back up, and try again, but my 2WD 
pickup made it over the mountain while the AWD suburbanites sat.

I am debating whether to subject my Rampside, purchased last Spring, to 
winter driving...

--Bob Marlow