Continental Tires has a European market tradition of taking some of the coolest cars from tuner partners to Finland for their own fun-in-the-snow style event. Think GP Ice Race, but for tuners like ABT Sportsline and run by a tire manufacturer known for their winter tire tech and you wouldn’t be far off.
In 2020, Continental described their event this way:
Icy roads, deep snow, white forests and freezing cold temperatures… There are few places where such perfect winter conditions are the norm for almost half the year. Lapland is one of them. Located on the Artcic Circle in Finland, the region has snow and below-zero temperatures from November through to the end of April most years. If you want to find out whether your snow tires can handle the toughest winter driving possible, this is the place to put them to the test. In January, some of the world’s best tuners sent their most innovative custom cars to a tire test track near Rovaniemi, Lapland, to challenge the Continental WinterContact under conditions best described as a winter wonderland.
Michael Schneider, Continental’s Head of Tuning, outlines the challenging logistics: “The tuners deliver the vehicles to us in Germany. They are trucked to Finland, where we have prepared special tracks. There’s a wide run, a handling course and a slalom track. The cars tackle them all on our best winter tires and we compare the results.”
While we haven’t yet seen coverage for the 2024 event, we have seen social media posts from ABT confirming their return and participation in this year’s event. We also saw @continental_reifen posting photos and video from the event, including the presence also of an iconic Audi Sport quattro S1 E2.
