2 valid cars to do this comparison with would be a std 2wd Sapphire and a std 4x4 Sapphire.

Which "handles" the best? Handling is different things to different people.
I can remember the Ford SVE guy said that although the 4wd car was a safer one for Joe Public in the wet, his chassis development engineers preferred the handling of the rwd cars. I think it was the May 1990 issue


Performance Car mag did a test like this with the 525i BMW vs 525ix some years ago - in terms of steady state lateral g there was almost no difference