Grew up in mountainous high altitude Switzerland with pickets on the side of the road to show where the road stops, pickets were over 2m high because there was that much snow and ice and even now they are buried every winter and a machine has to come everyday to salt and remove snow from the road. My parents did just fine driving a class e break with winter tires and when weather got really shitty chains. Now that I live in the rural French country with an as shit and cold weather, I got a 4wd A6 avant with winter tires because I’m a bad driver and need to carry the kids to stuff. The husband is a really good driver and has a regular A3 with just winter tires and never crashed with it. But it was another story when he was younger and drived recklessly and totalled a couple cars. Also personally dislike suvs as center of gravity is much higher and it’s a lot more dangerous on slippery roads if you loose control at some point to regain stability.