Hot Car, Cold Road

If you live where snow and hilly roads complicate winter driving, sports car ownership requires some compromises: One is that you can park the car for the winter. If that isn't an option, you need to know that the more powerful the sports car, the wider its tires — exactly what you don't want on snow — and the wider the tires, the more they're likely to be optimized for grip solely on dry roads. There are high-performance sports cars sitting on super tires so ill-suited to slick roads that they routinely get crashed in suburban driveways the first time somebody tries to drive them on snow.

European enthusiasts drive the most powerful Porsches and Ferraris in the Alps all winter, so it certainly can be done — especially with all-wheel-drive models like the Lamborghini Murcielago or Porsche 911 C4. But they do it on very special, very expensive snow tires mounted on even more expensive wheels narrower than their cars' stock wheels. The tires are pricey because they need to be capable of going 150 mph on dry autobahns and autostradas between ski weekends. Your average Sears snow tire is a 90-mph doughnut.

For serious snow-belt driving, consider the Audi TT quattro or Porsche 911 C4. With four standard snow tires mounted on cheap steel wheels for the winter they'll outrun a Jeep in the snow.

In theory, sports cars with all-wheel drive like the Lamborghini Murcielago can handle snowy roads with proper tires. But that's just silly. + enlarge image  |  view gallery >

There was a time when sports car enthusiasts parked their rides for the winter without question, for fear of road salt causing rust damage. This is less of a concern with today's high-quality production sports cars from Porsche, Jaguar, Mercedes, Nissan and the like, which are made of galvanized steel and protected by highly effective anti-corrosion coatings. (Check the warranty. Many will guarantee the car against rust penetration for ten years — or even the life of the car.) Still, if you do drive your sports car in the snow, it's probably a good idea to give it a weekly high-pressure underbody hosing at the nearest do-it-yourself carwash.

Fiberglass Corvettes are impervious to body rust, but an aluminum-intensive Aston Martin or Acura NSX, though thoroughly corrosion-coated, warrants winter parking. Salt is anathema to aluminum.

Rust or not, in snowy conditions there's always a risk. In the beep of a cell phone, your super-expensive exotic could be totaled by a skidding Saturn worth less than your custom steering wheel.