This was my favorite winter vehicle.
It had a couple of things going for it. The center transfer case and rear dif were locking the front diff was open. That meant one front tire would not spin and steer instead. Kept it from just going down hill in all but the absolute slickest situations. And It did not have ABS. Also the tires were just big enough that it would float thru snow. It would start to sink, then pack enough snow to move forward. Crossed many deep drifts that other 4x4s would just sink up to the frame and have to be dug out.
Without ABS could stop on ice quicker than dry pavement. Slam on the brakes locking all four up. Shift it to reverse and floor it while the brakes are locked up. Then release the brakes. Wow it would stop quick spinning the wheels backwards, and usually because of the saw tooth wear on the tire tread it would throw big chunks of ice out in front of he vehicle.
Tried that with the Rover and the ABS just let it very slowly decelerate to a stop.
Would like to somehow install and ABS on/off switch on the Cayenne. But we haven't had enough icy weather to worry about it.
Was driving to the store in my Passat (it did really well on ice and snow) and it was really icey. A suburban went zipping by me on the four lane street. Sure enough when I got the half mile to the intersection that suburban had slammed into another truck. While they both could get going, evidently neither could stop. So, the way I drive in icy conditions is not by how fast I can get going, it how quickly I can stop.
Actually all my vehicles did pretty good on ice and snow even the 944 Turbo. The only exception was the 928 GT when I had summer ultra high performance tires on it. Got some all season tires and it did great. Remember on New Years that I follow the sand truck most of the way home.'