Porsche's sliding standards - Introduction

Production editor Euan Doig heads deep into the Arctic Circle to brush up on his driving-on-ice skills

Damn, it's cold. Properly, teeth-grittingly, muscle-clenchingly bitter – and we're only halfway there… The hundred yards from the plane to the terminal has never felt like more of an endurance trek.

The inclement British weather is the reason we're in Ivalo, northern Finland, a good couple of hundred miles inside the Arctic Circle, because the way the UK ground to a halt during the January snowfalls highlighted a serious shortage of winter driving skills and equipment in this country.

We wanted to see the benefits of proper kit and tuition, so booked ourselves on to the Porsche Ice Force Winter Driving Experience, a course that promised to enhance our abilities no end at the same time as being a bit of a hoot.

The Experience is available to anyone with a spare four days and the requisite £5500. It's a lot, but for that you get a lot, including flights, accommodation, loads of tuition on how to drive sideways, all transfers, and a snowmobile safari.