Back in the day we in central WA state broke out our rides and did some Polar cruises. Usually January and February, even during falling snow. Bundled up, did a heater check and hit the road. Given the road conditions we kept our cruises short. We even had some brave souls that drove their roadsters. Let’s hear from some of our fellow Hotroders from the northern states, Canada and even Alaska.
There’s too many highly corrosive deicers used on Minnesota roads, I won’t drive my fun cars until spring rains wash away the residue. Usually that’s mid to late April.
I park my stuff when the first salt/sand hits the road until spring. Here they use lots of sand/gravel on the roads for traction that cause paint and windshield chips, as well as using salt and very corrosive calcium chloride to melt ice. About 8 year ago on December 21, it was really nice so I took my 46 for a drive. The cleanup wasn't worth it.
I'm with Black_Sheep, here in Wisconsin one single drive in January would do permanent damage to any of my old cars. Even if I washed it afterward, the drive from the car wash to my shop is enough to cover a car in salt. I sometimes refer to my winter beater as a sacrificial anode. I do have heat in my '57 now that works pretty good so I've definitely taken some cold weather drives, but I wouldn't dare salt up a car that survived 50+ years.
It sure ain't the same @dart4forte , but Chip used to do a new year's cruise up into the hills from PHX. The northerners may scoff at us wussy Arizonans, but it gets cold in the desert at night, especially at higher elevations. FLAGSTAFF Current weather 6:28 AM 32°F Clear Feels like 22° Expect sunny skies. The high will be 58° Wind 6 mph Humidity 61% Pressure 30.26 in
Ain't no way in Ohio. It's the rust belt for a reason. Then the state decided this new fangled 'Brine' was a great idea! Gets into every nook & cranny! It's the reason we use Wool-Wax, Surface Shield, goose grease, whatever etc, on our daily's if you give 2 ****s about 'em! Only plus is they created a whole new cottage industry. I just run a beater with a heater (&AWD) myself.
Yeah, he still does that run on the morning of thanksgiving. We are actually looking at a late March drive up My Lemon. Given it’s at 9000ft the snow on the road can be challanging. We took that reliability cruise around Phoenix last weekend. When we met it was 32 degrees but warmed up by mid day to around the high 60s. I can understand the salt issue to include those little black crushed rocks but a one or two events shouldn’t be a big deal. The clean up would be worth enjoying the car.
We do some cruises here in the winter. I don't take my "good stuff" out, but I've got a couple OT '60s and '70s rides I drive year round (rust makes 'em faster) and I'll take them on the cruises. Every time we've gotten snow, it's quickly melted this year. Here's a couple from the Christmas Cruise that should be ok to post here.
It’ll get cold here but hardly ever snows. They will salt the roads if we have it but it just washes right off the next day or two when it’s warmer and turns to rain.
I promise you I'm not saying this to be a ****, I'm not trying to come off that way or one-up you or anything. But unless you've lived and driven through at least one Wisconsin winter, you don't realize the corrosive horror that road salt/brine causes. There is no amount of cleanup that will get that salt out from underneath the car. You could drive it through 10 fancy car washes with the underside sprayer and the trip home would immediately spoil it again. No car wash that you can give yourself in the driveway is going to get it clean enough, or even be possible in sub-freezing temperatures. It's common for 15-20 year old pickup trucks to literally break in half up here from rot. We're not being wimps, and it really has nothing to do with the cold. We would if we could.
I hear you 100% on that, which is why I only drive my already rusty "patina/rat rod" (yeah I hate those terms) trucks in the winter. Missoula where I live is considered "Little Portland", and if you don't know what that means, I won't get into it....so they switched to some "environmentally friendly" de-icer. And that **** is even worse than the real deal. The floor on my F100 daily driver is half made up of license plates now because it's not worth fixing them with new pans, and that **** will pit and ruin any bare aluminum in a matter of minutes....I'm lucky in that I have the room/capacity/desire to own a couple "beaters" that are still cool to drive in the winter. Still gives me my old car/truck fix.
I guess its a matter of perspective. I got my 49 Dodge pickup from a guy that was a month away from having to send it to the s**** yard. The truck was just the bare sheet metal on its original bent frame that came with a 4x4 Dakota frame along with it. The guy had jumped through the hoops to get the 49 ***led with the 4x4 frame as a complete truck, though it was just parts. I bought a donor truck and built the 49 in 11 months. It was licensed in 2022, I was 66 years old at the time. Through the entire build process, every surface in, out, or under the truck was painted. My intention was to drive this truck all year around, up here in the north west corner of IL. That is the reason it is a 4x4 truck. The body work and outer paint was completed in 2023. I have to put this truck into the proper perspective. 20 years ago I had a different 50 Dodge pickup. That sheet metal was mounted on a a 1980 Dodge 4x4 pickup frame, that 4x4 frame had a snow plow mounted n it. The 50 was a work horse. It was used top pull my car trailer, haul heavy loads, plow my driveway and the lot where my welding shop was. I used that truck for 12 years to plow snow. I did replace the driver side cab floor about 7 years into driving it, because all the window seals leaked water, and the truck spent every day outside in the weather (it was too tall to fit in my garage). The reason I quit driving it after 12 years was because some lady made a left turn directly in front of me and I hit her head on at 30 mph. The truck frame was twisted bad. There was some rust in the front fenders that would have survived another 4-5 years, had they not been bent into pretzels in the crash. When I turned 66, I became the only second man on both sides on my family trees that had survived to that age. I do have an uncle on my mom's side that is currently into his 90s. All of the uncles, both grand dads, and my father had all died before they reached 62, nearly all from health related issues. Males that have survived past the age of 62 in my family is pretty rare, I'm one of only two out of a group of 14 males to make it past 62. I fully intend to drive this 49 truck until I can't or it won't move. I don't much care what it might look like, it will be my cool rat rod I get to drive when ever I want to drive it. The last 50 Dodge 4x4 I had lasted 12 years as a snow plow. This one doesn't have to plow snow, it doesn't have to go out in the really bad weather (I'm retired), it gets washed at least every week at a self wash car wash, then goes home to a heated garage. My 49 in the freshly snow blown driveway, from last year, its 3 winter. As of the 1st of Jan, this year, we have driven the truck 28,667 miles since it was first plated in June 2022 (5,815 in 2025). I suspect this original picture got "lost" because of the wheels. I have created an "on topic" HAMB friendly picture of the truck. They still use mostly salt around here.
Several years ago, a friend in eastern Tennessee called me in northern Illinois to let me know he was organizing a group to attend the Ramblin' Oldies of Denham Springs (RODS) event near Baton Rouge the last weekend of February. I told him my participation would depend on the weather. As it turned out the weather was great, the roads were clear and dry and I made the trip to Birmingham to meet the group. We cruised to Baton Rouge. After the event I soloed to Memphis and back to northern Illinois. It is a great wintertime memory for a northern rodder. Photo cruising across Mississippi.
Never ever in Minnesota in the winter. The calcium chloride they use on the roads here seems like it is a thousand times more corrosive than the salt they previously used. And I care far too much about my old cars to ruin them ….
I have posted this pic from around 2010 I drive in winter , Now days if roads have been sprayed & No wash off , I do not drive until its has rained .. 30ish years ago & before drove year round DD . & talking about Salt !!! I can not believe What happen's to any Ride @ The Salt Flat's. I will stick to dirt if I make it to a timing Meet / event.
Not taken that way at all. Don’t blame you for protecting your rides. Something you may want to consider is that chemical the Salt Flat guys use. Neutralizes the salt. I did that to my Dodge both times I visited Bonneville. I got the truck up on the rack and applied the stuff with a garden sprayer. I’m sure the Rolling Bones guys use it as well
Prior to moving south in 18 I spent 25 years in Wisconsin. It seemed like it got worse every year, by the time I left i'd swear they were salting the roads just to spend the money. By spring the roads looked snow covered except that it was salt. Big trucks would have a cloud of salt behind them that you could hardly see through. Don't miss it a bit!
My heater in my 57 works good, however it is in the garage covered up until the spring. On Long Island they salt the roads and use gravel too in some places. It will not come out until the spring, and it has rained enough to wash all the salt and gravel away. Up until a few years ago I always had a beater to drive in the winter. I had a 57 Plymouth 4 door sedan, then a 57 Plymouth 4 door hardtop and then a 58 Plymouth 2 door hardtop. Around here you do not see many old cars out in the bad weather. I would get comments from people who wanted to know why I would drive such a nice old car in such bad weather. I am not as young as I used to be and now, I prefer to drive my 4WD Jeep in the bad weather.
Am not in the US but same problem with the gravel and the calcium chloride. I have completed 95% of the welding which needed to be done on my car and have zero desire to revisit it lol. Having said that, I could see the situation in which - if I were in the US where you can still find such cars at reasonable prices - I'd get a 40s-50s-60s 4 door, long roof or p/u something to use as an everyday car, and I have rust-proofed more than one car in the past which held through during winter (provided you kept on top of dirt ac***ulation and dealt with any rust before it got terminal). But not the toy
Being A Wisconsin resident all my life the salt deal eats your vehicles alive. None of my 3 HAMB cars ever was out in Winter, nice cars, now sold, I have 3 OT cars that are mint, one I purchased new, one from a fellow cheese head, his hobby car, like mine never out in Winter, sunny day hobby cars and the third I brought home from Az, I hate rust, worked on some mildly rusty **** when I was a kid, hated it and I learned way back then, spend more and buy something nice to start with. I have sacrificed my DD trucks and SUVs through the years and sold/traded good running vehicles because of oncoming rust, the price of having 4 seasons. Retired for many years now my DD SUV is getting tough, not a "Sandford and Son" truck yet, a Winter beater and I keep it going, recently changed rusty tranz lines, a PIA job IMO. Enjoying the HAMB this AM with my morning coffee, the song, "Baby it's cold outside" keeps repeating in my head, going to snowblow today, 6th time already, normally 6-10 all winter season.
One of the better days of my life was when I sold my monster snowblower and moved from the shore of Lake Michigan to Tennessee.
We Wintered In Az. for 6 Winters, (SnowBirds) tired of the drive, 30 hours 2000 miles, wife will not fly and we have a dog, so I sold it, rethinking that this winter some but what's done is done, we love our Northwoods paradise, but that may change as we continue with age/health issues.
I will not drive my cars and truck in the winter no way no how but I did see some out in the last week or so as the temps got up to a blistering 45 degrees but as I type this there's minus degree windchill and snow blowing sideways.
Flagstaff can be treacherous driving thru with elevation change, Be 70 degrees at bottom and black ice at elevation on top
We’re supposed to be getting a polar blitz this weekend into next week and I’m going to be driving mine 6v and all.
I’m in Southern Alberta and we get A weather phenomenal called Chinoks where we can suddenly have warm weather. It was 10C yesterday and sunny. Couldn’t resist taking it out for a spin. It’s going to be -30 any day again so enjoy the days you get
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