a lass at work has a suzuki swift 4wheel drive(quite old think its about 12-15 years old). she lives in a very remote area, her drive had a massive hill going down and then it has a tight turn at the bottom were theres a river, when it snows nothing will go up her drive, even the royal mail wownt go up there. and the roads around her are pretty bad too, last year on the way to work she used to see a few cars that had been abandoned every day. she however never got stuck. and the car only cost her a couple of hundred quid.
i have no experience of one though so could be compleatly wrong, but what ive herd there relatively good, relatively cheep and not exactly expensive to run.
so yeah if your looking for something cheep which wil be better in snow than a fwd golf could be worth a punt