The folks at TyreReviews are releasing a series of videos that showcase the importance of winter tires and how they stack against all-wheel drive vehicle inadequately equipped with summer tires.
In the video below, a BMW M3 (RWD) running on Michelin Pilot Alpin 4 UHP winter tires goes against a Subaru Forester 2.5XT PPP on Bridgestone Potenza RE070 UHP summer tires.
The challenge stipulates that first car up the hill is the winner.
As you can see in the video below, SUVs that are not equipped with proper winter tires as just as bad, if not worse as rear-wheel drive vehicles in snow, but with a good set of winter rubers, even a powerful rear-wheel drive M3 can be safer in snowy conditions.
Here are some great articles that our own Shawn Molnar wrote on winter tires: 1 and 2.