Recent winter weather conditions would prompt most sports car drivers to put their ride up on blocks until spring. Not Chris Hall, proud owner of a 2014 Ford Mustang MCA Edition.

Not even last month’s polar vortex kept Hall from getting behind the wheel of his pony car. January turned out to be one of the coldest months in decades as the vortex pushed an enormous mass of arctic air over much of the United States and Canada, and dropped record amounts of snow and ice.

“I picked up my 2014 Mustang MCA Edition on July 1, 2013, and it’s been my daily driver ever since,” said Hall, national treasurer for Mustang Club of America. “I’ve put nearly 11,000 miles on it since I took delivery, and I love driving it every minute.”

For nearly 50 years, Mustang has offered an unbeatable blend of style, performance along with everyday capability that entices owners to hit the road at every possible opportunity. The freedom and independence Mustang inspires isn’t hampered by bad weather.

As Hall learned this year, a combination of smart technology and a bit of preparedness makes it relatively easy to live with contemporary Mustangs. Every new Mustang comes standard with anti-lock brakes, traction control and electronic stability control systems that use an array of sensors to help the car follow the driver’s steering, acceleration and braking commands.

Still, even the smartest electronics sometimes need help when pitted against the limits of physical grip on the road. Hall has tackled the unusually extreme conditions Mother Nature has recently delivered by installing a set of tire chains on the rear wheels and putting some weight in the trunk of his Mustang. Suitably prepared, Hall’s 305-horsepower, rear-wheel-drive pony has had no problem at all getting through more than nine inches of fresh snow in his home town of Ottsvile, Pa.

Hall is far from being the only Mustang driver to use his car in cold weather.

“It’s awesome – people look at me like I’m crazy in the middle of a Detroit winter – driving a 662-horsepower car,” said Jamal Hameedi, Ford global performance vehicles chief engineer. “But I don’t care because the sound it gives me on the way to work is well worth the weird looks on the Southfield Freeway.”

Hameedi drives his 2014 Shelby GT500 Mustang year-round, swapping high-performance summer tires on his supercharged pony for a set of winter tires when the mercury dips.

Whether you opt for tire chains like Hall or winter tires like Hameedi, with some extra care, driving a Mustang means you don’t have to give up the joy of pony car ownership any time of the year.