So he’s driving with the top down in the winter where there’s snow? I have nothing against AWD, just don’t see the point in what I consider to be a fair weather vehicle. Sorry that your knee deprives you of one of the great lost pleasures of driving.
Even easier to handle in a hard top. The mx-5 will never be a snow car: Tires can make it better but ground clearance is too short.
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Point taken. Clearly not my priority.
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While wearing that spiffy suit! 
But, of course, Monsieur!
These are AWD all-season cars. Perfect for a top down cruise in nice weather, just fine in the winter with the top up. I’m sure you ‘understand’ that.
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Thanks to everyone for their input. For better or worse, I ended up going with a 2020 BMW 4-series, which has a hard top. We’ll see how things go in the long run. 
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Congratulations! Just make sure you follow the maintenance schedule to the letter and you’ll have a great time. Join some BMW forums to get info from other owners like you.
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Very nice looking car. Good for you!
Enjoy your new (to you) car. Looks terrific!
Does it have the auto start/stop function?
Looks like all 4 series convertibles have auto stop/start, is that the vehicle you are interested in buying?
As usual we went away from the original question, so now my $0.02 worth.
Yep, while I liked the Skyliners, the Sunliner were better proportioned, plus the Skyliner weighed about 500 pounds more.
The Miata had a retractable hardtop that was nice, only weighed 50 pounds more than the soft top. Now Miata has a partial retractable.
Snow country, had a coworker that drove a Triumph TR4 all year in Utah, had a ski rack on the back. No problem with snow tires. He might have had a set of tire chains, but I never saw him use them.
I grew up driving open differential 2WD vehicles in Minneapolis in the 60s, 4WDs were rare.