I drove an 89 VW Fox Wolfsburg for the 2 years I lived and worked on Mt. Hood... I lifted it 1.5in and ran all season hightraction tires and I'll tell you that thing was better in the snow than most of the POS domestic SUV's I had to push around the parking lot daily. I also took it up alot of forest service access roads of varying degrees of bad repair and it did great.
Come to think of it I've taken all of my VW's off road to some degree. My 92 Jetta which was a 202hp street monster got me out to TImber Oregon to go camping... not fun, but I got it over every water break I needed to... Before I turned into a Toyota enthusiast, I was wheeling what I had, VW's. I'd never give up my Runner, but I would love to have the motor out of my Jetta in a nice MK2 GTI...
Cheers
Dave