Snow birds

[richard bies <bies@domain.elided>]

So any Alfa is reaching red-line in top gear, eh?  I guess there are some
fairly decent hills around Calgary....

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But which one, in extremeis?

(That climate is not fit for man nor beast -- you can't expect machinery
to operate well at -30, either.  Obscene -- these are fine machines of a
Meditteranean clime.  Mankind was insane to have settled that far North
- -- hell, even the 40th parallel is too far North....)


I would retreat to a few fundamentals, and give the nod to the GTV6.

The operation of the GTV6 depends upon fewer complexities.

The weight distribution of the GTV6 is ideal.

I doubt that you actually need a snow-plow in Calgary -- in a more nearly
reasonable climate, heavy snows happen with an ambient near freezing.  At
- -30, the air connot contain enough moisture to support a heavy snow --
what one gets is a few fine ice-crystals floating about.  Whether the 164
is more immune to hanging-up I don't know, but the forte' of fwd is
grinding through snow in front of the front wheels.  And that's it.  Once
traction is lost in the wheels both driving and steering, Katie bar the
door.

There is a down-side to the GTV6 in the slick -- it can be difficult to
apply power gently.  Retro-fit a Platinum LSD slush-pump?  But the
stability of that machine under any condition is remarkable.  (Yes,
<maybe> one of the amidship also 50/50 would give slightly lower angular
momentum; maybe a perfectly done 4wd could be more stable.  Consider a
Quatro?)

But if the stepper-motors running the heater (a necessity in the arctic..)
fail in civilized climes, at -30 those plastic gears will go South fast.
To keep the whole car going will be a challenge (well, anything is, but
that's unnecessarily Goldbergian).

Ask those who have done it.  But remember -- the 164 owner is talking
about the car from new -- the remembered experience with a GTV6 will be of
an at least ten-year-old car.  The 164 is getting older all the time.

r.m.bies

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