I wouldnt go with a subaru, ive driven lots of subarus and have yet to be impressed with one in the snow. ive driven a 2005 outback, 2002 wrx, 2004 sti, and a 2010 sti in snow, and neither was very impressive, the outback was probably the best out of them though. all of them understeer like crazy, dont do what you want them to, and give you hardly any feedback.
audis are a better choice for a snow car, though im not a fan of any of their newer models. the A3 may be worth looking at though.
the new EVO is a mistake.. its almost an insult to the evo name. it weighs something like 3600, you feel disconnected from the steering wheel, you tell it to do one thing and the car makes corrections to do something else. its annoying as hell to drive, it relies way too much on computers and is nowhere near as good of a car as the evo 8 and 9.
the ralliart i havent driven, i havent really even looked into them much, but it seems more basic, hopefully this means less retarded electronics, its pretty cool that it comes in a hatch. its also pretty cheap which is nice, and if its anything like the evo in snow, it altleast wont understeer like crazy everywhere...
if i was forced to buy something modern and AWD, id probably choose a VW R32, or a BMW 335xi. both of them, though not much of a pure sports car as their earlier models, are well balanced very good performing cars. and just cool in general.
you could also look at a used porsche carrera 4.... awd, and rear engine makes for very good performance in snow, and porsches are actually very reliable, i think they were rated #1 most reliable car company recently, even above companies like honda and toyota..
would he consider anything older?? like 2004 and earlier??
