From my experiences, winter tyres (Michelin version) give enormous improvements in grip when the weather gets cold and seem great in the summer too. It is unlikely I will return to conventional tyres ( I would try the cross climate ) unless I really had to, for some reason.
the old trick is to use forward and reverse rapidly alternated to clear a larger bit of ground to start from, tricky to do in a manual, but not impossible.
Since you sometimes get stuck on a bit of an incline, you can "rock" even in one gear by judicious manipulation of clutch and throttle.
There's also the old Swedish trick, for RWD cars with rear handbrakes, to put the handbrake on lightly if one wheel is spinning, then you can often get enough torque on to the "good" wheel to get you moving.
Still not totally out of date; apart from Beemers, my Suzuki Carry van is RWD (and a bit of a liability on mud or driving briskly on wet roads). It stays firmly on the drive in any snow or ice.
IIRC the handbrake on the Citroen CX and its famous FWD predecessors was on the front wheels (because it had rear disk brakes). I can't recall having any significant trouble with snow in the years when I was running them, perhaps thanks to the weight distribution!
Winter tires are softer and have more sipes that present more edges designed to cut into the ice.
All the sipes make the tread block move more and that has 2 effects. They conform to the road/snow/ice better when cold >7°C. They wobble around a lot more when hot and that will affect handling at the limit.
If you drive carefully or rarely leave town you won't notice. If you hammer it down a twisty NSL lane at the NSL then you might notice it doesn't handle as well on a warm summer day.
MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.