I grew up with Knobby snow tires, also at that time, all through the seventies, radials were rare.
For me they were day and night different from regular tires and if you remember the tread on regular tires up to the early eighties using them in snow was a fools folly.
The last knobbies I had was in the late eighties; I regretted, and do to low money, could not afford snow tires for about ten years.
Now i run Michelin X snow tires which are fantastic, front and rear, and can crawl up a steem snow/ice hill with no worry.
When I was in auto mechanis school the instructors said -- run you snow tires at lower air pressure, so the lugs can dig in better - it worked WELL.
Rear wheel drive has NEVER been a problem for me in winter, IF, I had the right tires.
Only once the eighties, when I had my 1966 Pylmouth and was driving in turly deep snow up a hill before plows were even doing the streets did I have a problem.
I had god knobbies in back but would 2/3rds up a steep hill and not go any farther. Tried it twice and stoppeed same spot twicw, so, I backed down the hill again, turned the car around and backed up the hill as fast as I could. Made it to the top no problem, praise the Lord for Knobbies.
You can now again get knobbie, which technically are called ligh truck-SUV tires which if you live in an area with heavy snow often is not a bad idea.
Knobbies main annoyance was on dry road they were noisy and would wear down quicker.
One very bad thing now is many old 14-15 inch tires sizes are being discontinued by the best tire companies so one has to try to buy a 16 inch tire with as close to the correct height to now screw up the speedometer.
Putting snow tires on all four wheel is far more important, at leas on a rwd car, that people want to accept, it made steering on my Olds as worry free as was spinning the rear tires.
NOW running knobbies on all four, if it is not a truck, well.....
