<VV> More Salt Now & Snow Driving

[Bryan Blackwell]

On Feb 14, 2009, at 6:57 PM, Henri van Wandelen wrote:

> ?  Anyone have any good 'Vair snow driving adventures to share?

I have one you might like, many who have driven a Corvair in winter  
can relate:

Back in the '80s, I drove a '65 Corsa coupe, 140/4, with headers and  
glasspacks.  It also had Phoenix Stahlflex summer performance tires  
on it.  Nonetheless, it would go through snow amazingly well, as long  
as I didn't high center it.

One day we had a pretty good snowfall - around here few people how to  
drive in snow, and their cars are usually not equipped with very good  
tires for it either.  Cars were stuck everywhere.  Of course being a  
Corvair driver, I had no issues, and just had fun playing around.  On  
the way home, I picked up a guy who was walking from the bus stop,  
he'd left his car at work.  His house was somewhat out of the way,  
but it involved going down one of my favorite twisty roads, so it  
sounded like fun to check it out with snow on it.

The best feature of this road is a downhill section to a bridge, up  
the other side to a climbing turn.  Great fun!  When we got to the  
crest of the downhill, there was a line of cars waiting, and some  
stuck on the other side.  Eventually the cars got pushed up the hill,  
and then cars would go one at a time.  We got to about three from the  
end of the line and after they all got started, the first of the  
three got stuck.  Of course, the next two cars stopped behind that one.

So, I drove down the hill, halfway up the far side, and stopped  
behind the little group of cars.  My passenger and I got out, and we  
helped push each of the three cars up the hill.  Behind us, the  
traffic waited on the other side of the bridge for a clear road.   
After we pushed the last car up the hill, my passenger looked at me  
and asked "Now what do we do?", pointing at the Corsa.

The moment I had waited for :-)

Remember how your driving instructor said "Ease into the throttle in  
snow"?  Yeah, right.  We walked down to the car, and I said "Jump  
in."  He looked at me with a bit of disbelief - sure that the kid in  
the loud car was about to look silly.  I looked over "Watch this",  
put the lever in first, and brought the engine up to about 3500.

Then sidstepped the clutch.  The Corsa clawed and shook, throwing a  
huge cloud of snow and ice as it dug it's way up the hill.  We gained  
some speed, then powerslid around the uphill bend and out of sight.   
The look on the guy's face was priceless :-)

--Bryan