ice driving

This month, ROAD magazine stretches from the icy tundra of Lapland – ice driving with four-times WRC Champion, Juha Kankkunen in supercars – to the humid Far East – VW Scirocco R-Cup racing in Shanghai – and then on to the dry deserts of Las Vegas – for the 2011 SEMA show.

It seems fortuitous that BMW chose a snowy Austria for the UK launch of its new 2011 X3, in fact the timing couldn't have been any more perfect. As I write this, much of the UK is gripped by the most wintry November conditions in recent memory, Ideal for the four-wheel-drive SUV sector that BMW has targeted with its X3. But of course four-wheel-drive is only as useful as the traction available to a car's tyres, so BMW also chose last week's X3 launch to reveal its new range of winter-tyre packages available on all BMW and MINI models.