Few Questions about SVX's before I buy

Hello all... Since my daily commute should very soon be tripled, I started looking for something that has awd or 4wd for the snow, and stumbled upon the svx. I was intrigued and thought, if I'm going to spend the money on something, why not get something a little fun.

The responses here have been great (though I'm disappointed it won't be as reliable as the other subarus my family has owned), but I'm wondering how good the cars do in the snow? (Yes, just shoot me now for wanting an SVX as a winter beater.)

I found online a 92 LS-L with 127K miles, pictures look great, but "may need transmission"; they're asking $2,700. I'm trying to find out exactly what the seller means about the tranny, whether it's gone or going - wondering if I could squeeze a year out of it if I'm only driving it once in a while. I'd rather drive stick, so I'd want to wait a year to pull together the cash for a 5 speed conversion. Anything anyone can tell me about whether that's a horrible idea or not would be appreciated.

I'm not expecting it to be extremely fast or anything - I drive a stock Mercury Cougar 2.5L v6 MTX (though it seems like a race car after driving rentals for 3 weeks, ford fucus, suzuki forenza, toyota cororlla).