nuts.
i drive only RWD cars and snow tyres from november till march are a must. never had problems with hills. no need for AWD. btw, snow tyres are mandatory by law on all vehicles in EU from october till april.
if your wife is really that afraid of snow, get her a Lada Niva!!! there's much more of those in US and Canada than you might think. that thing can't be stopped by mud or snow les than 2ft deep and it gets at least twice MPG compared to explorer. only downside to Niva is that people over 300pounds might find it a bit of a tight squeeze
There aren't many Nivas in the US that I know of because Ladas were never sold in this country and getting a car registered that is not on the "list" is a problem. A friend of mine who lives up in Seattle who is originally from Russia somehow smuggled in a Niva from Canada. And there are a few in up state New York. Almost all near the Canadian border. I think some people just get the Canadian seller to drive the car across the border then the new American owner swaps the ID plates and emblems from a Fiat then registers the car as a Fiat. Of course this is not legal...
Val transplanted a 2 liter Bosch fuel injected engine from a Fiat Spider. It looked really nice. He ended up selling it on Ebay. He also imported some bits and pieces from a Lada Vaz to make his 124 sedan look like a real Lada.
This makes the 5th time I've tried replying to this post. I keep having problems trying to type within the window. So I'm typing this within an email then cut and pasting it on the message board just in case it tells me I need to log in. It's taking way too long to copy all of these photos then have to do it all over again.
So here are some direct links to my AWD vehicles.
This is my 1996 Ford Explorer XLT. It has all wheel drive and with semi off road tires will go anywhere. My 1994 Jeep Wrangler had four wheel drive and would spin out in slush. Oddly enough the Wrangler I had used the 2.5 liter 4 cylinder engine they had been making since the early 70s and averages about the same as the 5 liter V8 which was based on an even older engine design from 1962. The Wrangler got a consistent 15 US mpg or used 16 liters per 100 km. My V8 5 liter Explorer gets an average of 19.6 liters per 100 KM to 12.4 liters per 100 KM.
http://s222.photobucket.com/albums/dd148/turbofiat/Explorer/And my Subaru Legacy Ute:
http://s222.photobucket.com/albums/dd148/turbofiat/Subaru/