Nice 59 Impala ! I'm sure a lot of younger folks never drove rear wheel drive cars, one of my first challenging snowy winter drive was from Quebec city to Chicoutimi through the mountains at night and I made it with my 1975 Olds Cutlass ...

I had lugs on my 69 2+2, and it was, believe it or not, the absolute best car (of that era) in the snow. It would get us though anything. It would get completely stuck, but somehow always managed to rock/claw itself out without a push.

Explain the neutral advantage? How does it help?

Winnipeg wrote:

---

Cheviac wrote:

---

Best winter driving tip I was told as a teenager in the seventies. When you find yourself sliding toward an intersection, put the car in neutral and it really helps you stop. I still drive rear wheel drive cars today and it still works. We had driver education in high school and that was one of the things I remember the most.

---

 Agree with that one.  Been using neutral as a stop aid for years

---

 Yes, that's one of the things I taught my kids when they were learning to drive (on our Buick Roadmaster and Fleetwood as well as the pickup).

I remember seeing some old photos that dad took when we went tobogganing on the hills at Hamilton Golf & Country Club back in the sixties. We had a nice photo of us in front of dad's '66 Biscayne, and prominently to one side in the photo was an Artesian Turquoise '65 Laurentian sedan with whitewall snows on the back. The parking lot was piled high with fresh snow. I still remember that day in my snow suit. The old cars described were clean late models at the time.

Another cool shot my brother took in winter '76 of his friend doing a doughnut in front of our house in a '68 Parisienne fastback winter beater. It had a 327 4-barrel & a TH400. In the shot you could see motion with the back snow tires spraying snow in a rooster tail.

I know, without pictures it never happened. Unfortunately the pictures may not have survived the decades & some shunting.

I remember driving all the way to Mt. Ste-Anne de Bauprè from Ancaster one March break in a nearly-new '78 Capri II Ghia V6 4-speed. It had no snow tires, it had Michelin XZX tires, which were fantastic 3 seasons but really unthinkable in snow. It was a hairy drive. Funny thing is as we reached eastern Ontario while we were going roughly 85 mph, we looked behind and saw our friend rapidly approaching in his '75 Laurentian Safari at 100+ mph. He was supposed to have left the night before for Lake Placid and we were never supposed to have crossed paths, go figure. The Safari took the bridge to the U.S near the 1000 Islands but we drove on and stopped for dinner in Montreal. There we witnessed a 70-72 Corvette coupe, 454 4-speed & no snows (15x8 Rallies), revving to the moons trying to get out of a deep snow drift - the guy was insane. We made it to Bauprè late. The next morning on our way to breakfast along "the strip" we saw a cop in a new '79 Bel Air cop car doing doughnuts (not "doing" doughnuts, I know cops love those fried crullers with the sexy hole in the middle, but c'mon!). After writing off the Capri a few years later, my friend got an Accord hatchback that had 4-wheel snow tires and we were so amused by them then.

Back in the 60's & earlier before defoggers were common or even around, people used to rely on those clear vinyl frost shields. Typically rectangular but there were a few variations, they were stuck onto the glass to prevent any moisture from condensing (& subsequently freezing or frosting) directly on the glass. We had them on a '60 Bug and they went all cloudy or brown over the years. We had one on our $1800 new '71 Beetle as well.

Besides driving in an old rear wheel drive large domestic, it was also a lot of fun driving in winter in the first imports ... my buddy's Datsun B-210 was a blast! My other friend's parent's puke-orange Toyota Corolla was also a fun winter car! My brother had a first generation Suzuki Jeep that also was fun in the snow.