Whether you prefer a sports car, sedan, truck or SUV, there’s something fun to drive during the winter months. Whatever your choice, we recommend swapping your vehicle’s all-season or performance tires for a proper set of winter tires to provide extra grip in snowy or icy conditions.

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The Big Bend trim is the Bronco’s base trim level and it offers surprising comfort and practicality. It comes with a part-time four-wheel-drive system, all-terrain tires, and a hardtop with a rear window defroster and a rear window wiper. The turbocharged four-cylinder engine supplies up to 300 horsepower when running on premium fuel, and a seven-speed manual transmission is standard. Technically, the Bronco is priced below $40,000 to start but adding the destination charge puts it slightly over.

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Of all the pickup trucks on sale in 2024, Edmunds chose the Chevy Colorado as its Edmunds Top Rated Truck of the year. It raises the bar for midsize trucks, and the Trail Boss version exemplifies why.

This photo provided by Mazda shows the Miata RF convertible. Even in the wintertime, the Miata has a way of just making you smile all of the time. (Courtesy of Mazda North American Operations via AP)

This photo provided by Chevrolet shows the Colorado midsize pickup truck. The Trail Boss comes with features to enhance off-road capability but it also is well suited for wintertime driving. (Courtesy of General Motors via AP)

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This photo provided by Ford shows the Bronco midsize SUV. The Bronco has a lot going for it, including rugged-looking styling and a wide range of available configurations. (Courtesy of Ford Motor Co. via AP)

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Equipped with all-terrain tires, an off-road suspension with a 2-inch lift from the factory, and an automatic four-wheel-drive system, the Colorado Trail Boss is a five-passenger crew-cab pickup ready for almost anything. Its turbocharged 2.7-liter four-cylinder engine provides 310 horsepower and 430 lb-ft of torque is plenty for powering through snow drifts or towing up to 7,700 pounds.

Inserted in the projector is a slide with an image of Broida Hall, which appears right side up on a screen. In front of the projector is a dove prism, which is mounted so that you can rotate it about its long axis by means of the red tab at one end of the mount. When you place the prism in the beam from the projector as shown, the image on the screen is inverted. When you rotate the prism, the image rotates at twice the rate at which you rotate the prism. (The piece of plastic under the edge of the rail allows alignment of the inverted image with the original image.)

Subaru has earned a reputation for building vehicles that are well suited for winter. And among the brand’s current lineup, the most fun to drive for the winter is the WRX. This rally-bred sport sedan pairs a 271-horsepower turbocharged four-cylinder engine with a six-speed manual transmission and standard all-wheel drive to provide impressive traction and acceleration on any road surface.

This photo provided by Subaru shows the WRX sport sedan. The WRX’s standard all-wheel drive helps make it a year-round performance car. (Courtesy of Subaru of North America via AP)

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No, we’re not joking. Wrap the Mazda MX-5 Miata’s wheels in winter tires, and this rear-wheel-drive sports car can churn through the white stuff with remarkable ease as long as it isn’t too deep.

We see that the image of the object is inverted. Since the rays are refracted only in the vertical direction, the image is unchanged along the horizontal axis. That is, it is inverted, but not reversed from left to right. This is equivalent to reflecting the image across a mirror plane parallel to the top and bottom faces of the prism (i.e., horizontal when the prism is oriented as shown above). Since relative to the incident rays, rays reflected from a mirror lie at twice the angle of incidence, when you rotate the dove prism about its long axis, the image rotates at twice the rate at which you rotate the prism. We can also see that with the prism oriented as shown above and with it rotated 180 degrees, the image is inverted, but when the red tab is rotated 90 degrees in either direction, the image is flipped from left to right, but is right side up. Thus, when you start with the prism as shown above, as you rotate it though an angle of 180 degrees, the image makes one full rotation, and when you continue rotating for another 180 degrees, the image makes another full rotation. The red tab provides a handle by which you can rotate the prism, and also makes it easy for the class to see its orientation.

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The retro-styled Ford Bronco is more than just fun to look at. It’s also a blast to drive no matter the weather. It offers praiseworthy capability and character in equal measure, and its rugged design looks cool without trying too hard. The Bronco also has more on-road appeal than the rival Jeep Wrangler thanks to its smoother ride quality and more stable handling.

That’s true of any Miata. The RF version is better for winter driving thanks to its exclusive weathertight retractable hardtop roof to better keep the cold out and the heat in. Only the Grand Touring trim level slides in under our $40,000 price cap, but it’s well equipped with leather upholstery, heated front seats and heated exterior mirrors. Though the Miata’s low-to-the-ground design limits winter drivability during heavier storms, the car’s playful handling can be a delight to experience following a light snowfall.

Driving in the snow isn’t enjoyable for many people. It’s cold, the roads are slick, and city traffic is often slow going. But there are ways to have a bit more fun in the wintertime. To start, it helps to have the right vehicle.

Most WRX versions are priced under our $40,000 limit. We’d go with the Premium trim for overall value. It comes with cloth upholstery, heated front seats, heated side mirrors and a windshield wiper de-icer, and all-weather floor mats are an option. You can also get it with an automatic transmission.

Edmunds’ car experts have four recommendations, including one that you’d never guess could be just as enjoyable to drive in the winter snow as it is on dry summer roads. They’re listed below in alphabetical order and are capped to stay under $40,000. All prices include the destination charge.

The Trail Boss is decently equipped with features, though heated front seats are curiously unavailable. You can add heated side mirrors and all-season floor mats as options.

A dove prism has similar geometry to that of a right-angle prism oriented to act as an inverting prism, but without the extra glass on top. (See demonstration 80.24 -- Slide refracted through prism.) When light passes from air into glass at a non-zero angle of incidence, it is refracted toward the normal to the surface of the glass. In the dove prism oriented as shown above, then, rays from the projector are bent downward as they enter the prism. Since they meet the bottom face of the prism at an angle that is greater than the critical angle, they suffer total internal reflection and exit through the opposite face of the prism. (See Demonstration 80.18 -- Refraction tank.) The diagram below shows the paths that rays coming from the top and bottom of an object take as they pass through the prism to form an image.