Car skiing trendy new Kiwi winter sport
We hit the snow in high-powered BMWs at Alpine xDrive. David Linklater reports.
The great thing about skiing, I am told, is that you get to go to spectacular places and experience the sheer thrill of body control at high speed on a lowfriction surface.
Car skiing as a recreational sport is on the rise in New Zealand and it’s for very similar reasons. Just without the silly clothes and looming threat of serious injury.
I say ‘‘car skiing’’, but motor industry types call it ‘‘snow and ice driving’’. It’s the same really. I like my thing better.
New car models are all developed and tested in snow and ice of course. There are enormous facilities all around the world used for just that purpose.
But putting production cars and customers in snow and ice test centres for purely recreational purposes is another thing entirely.
It’s been burgeoning business in New Zealand for a decade now, with high-end brands like Aston Martin, Audi, BMW, MercedesBenz and Lamborghini inviting customers to come and play in the snow in expensive cars. More mainstream companies are also getting in on the act: Mazda was the first Japanese brand to run a customer snow-driving event in New Zealand last year.
Some of the customers for these car-skiing programmes are Kiwis, some are from Australia. Others come from all over the world.
That’s partly because we have a sensational place to do it. The Southern Hemisphere Proving Grounds (SHPG) on Mt Pisa, 1500 metres above sea level between Queenstown and Wanaka, is a winter test centre for the global automotive industry, with a network of private facilities spread over 40 hectares.
It’s a key location, because New Zealand is at the bottom of the world so Northern Hemisphere carmakers and tyre companies can still test in their summer.
It’s also a pretty awesome place because the location means stunning views and you’re only an hour or so from Queenstown – another mildly popular place for tourists to visit. So while carskiing events are held all over the world, you’d be hard pressed to find anywhere as spectacular as SHPG on a good day.
Yes, it’s a sport for the relatively wealthy. But then so is skiing.
And it’s not exactly crazy money. BMW NZ was one of the first companies up the mountain this year. Its Alpine xDrive Experience is open to anybody (so no, you don’t have to own a BMW); participants pay $2850 and for that you get a helicopter ride up to SHPG, a day driving on the snow with a team of expert instructors, two nights at Millbrook Resort near Arrowtown and a farewell dinner where the Veuve flows freely. You do have to get yourself to Queenstown though.
Putting aside the touristy thrills of high-altitude scenery, these events have evolved into highly polished exercises. You can justify it all in terms of driver training and learning more about what the technology in modern cars can do, but that’s a bit like saying you ski for fitness.
Yes, there is a short product presentation at Alpine xDrive and yes, you do learn some important snow-driving skills that you then employ on various exercises. But it’s primarily about having the kind of fun you can’t have unless you have free rein in the snow. Just like the other kind of skiing.
The BMW day is split into three modules, with groups rotating around them. One’s a bit of a scenic self-drive around the SHPG facility, with some zero-traction ice-rink slalom work thrown in. There’s some snow drag-racing and circuit work, then the chance to learn how to drift – first on a coned-out corner, but ultimately moving to a complete circle with the aim of holding the car sideways for several laps. No need to ask twice for that one.
So yes, learning is fun. As it should be for your $2850.
The cars are all supplied by BMW. The fleet changes every year depending on the theme. For
2018 there was the expected array of SUVs and Touring wagons, but also quite a bit of M-car product.
The star performer was the allnew M5, which is very on-brand for Alpine xDrive because it’s the first of its model line with allwheel-drive.
Having said that, it was run exclusively in 2WD for the event (yes, you can do that) for no other reason than it’s a lot of fun and much easier to do big skids when
441kW meets the slippery stuff. Indeed, the drift exercises relied exclusively on 2WD M-cars: the compact M2 and M4 coupes were also on hand for some snowassisted oppo.
That’s not to say the xDrive models were slide-free on the other modules, it’s just that they require very different techniques (see, more of that learning stuff).
Not surprisingly for an event that relies heavily on new-car customers, the SUV fleet showcased some shiny new product. The fashion-forward X2, previously only available in FWD, hit the snow in new xDrive20i form, where it promptly destroyed the 540i Touring in a drag-race. Or maybe it was just the excellent driving in the smaller car.
The flagship X3, the M40i, also showed itself to be the most sideways-oriented BMW SUV of the day even when stability control was activated (well, in Sport Plus mode at least). Not to mention the best-sounding.
At any of these days there’s always a diverse group of people, some of whom are car people and some of whom aren’t. Many are nervous about what they think will be a demanding and competitive day.
It can be both if you want it to, but you can also go at your own pace. One thing’s the same for everybody: by the end of the day, people can’t stop smiling.
I’d love to say this is a moneycan’t-buy experience, but in fact money can buy it. That’s the fantastic thing.