[svxistentialist]

Not that surprising Dave.

As a FWD car the SVX is nose heavy, will understeer, has low ground clearance and very wide boots that sit up on snow rather than dig in.

As soon as the long nose starts to lift the front of the car the front driven axle loses traction, the wheels spin.

In an AWD car this will cause the back axle to get more weight and the transmission will divert power to the back, restoring momentum. And making it fun to handle if the snow is not too deep.

The AWD SVX is the one to have really. I think Subaru only made them FWD as a cost cutting exercise when the original AWD model failed to reach the sales targets they expected.

In more normal dry or wet conditions though I suspect the FWD cars compensate by being faster and lighter than the AWD model, which will have more weight to haul and more transmission power losses.

Joe