Looking at all the nice rides posted on here and other forums, Ive figured ouot what I dont like about bigger rims.

In my day (yeah I'm an old fart) when the muscle cars were young, nothing said good looks like the wheel openings being filled up..... with rubber. The trend now seems to be Mucho rim little rubber.

I really do not like the look of 45 and 40 series tires. One ride on here had 18" 45s on front, and 18"40s on the rear... just doesnt look right to me.

I have done some searching for 60 series tires and most of what I come up with are truck/SUV stuff.

I think once I get a SCT tuner, Im going to keep the stock size on front and try to find a V rated 275/60 for the rears. Im my minds eye, it will look like a muscle car should.

Thoughts and opinions?

 

I will admit that if you put 18's on a 65 it would look a little silly but IMO it would look just as silly to but 14's on a 05. Just my two cents.

 

I know what you mean about some of the looks but I see nothing wrong with 18's wearing 285/40's and 255/45's. Then again I am biased.

 

I agree..... I don't like the big wheels with rubber bands on them... but in my minds eye, a big wheel is anything larger than 18". I won't go any bigger. The reason why I wouldn't go with a higher profile tire is that it won't handle the same. You'll have a softer ride, but I don't know anyone who makes performance tires with a high profile.... and the reason why the stock wheels are starting out at 17" is because of the brakes... I don't think a 16" will clear the calipers on the GTs. I know all of the old school muscle cars ran 15" wheels.... but it ain't gonna happen these days.

 

I like bigger rims myself (to a point). It just seems to me that the wheels are better "integrated" with the design of the car. With huge sidewalls, the cars just seem to be detached from the wheels and the car seems to float. With bigger rims, smaller series tires (again, to a point), the wheels seem to fit better within the car, not the car floating on black clounds of rubber.

I know I am not explaining it correctly, but bear with me.

Now, with classic cars, I certainly appreciate tucking big rubber -- I just think the bigger wheels fit better with the newer cars.

 

http://forums.bradbarnett.net/index.php?showtopic=31473

Not that he was going for a muscle car look but its pretty close and he managed to fit 15" rims on, though i dont know what he did (if anything) to get them to fit.
Personally I agree with both view points, sort of. 17" or 18" rims with enough tire to fill the wheel well, like a 255/50 or 55. Unfortunately havent seen anything in that size, best is a 45 which is ok if you want to go up to a 315 but not nearly as good with a 235 or 255.

 

Where I tend to agree with most of your post, I disagree on the how much rubber looks good on this particular car. The side walls of my 40 series is 1/2 an inch shorter than stock. I think it looks great. However Fat and skinnies may look really cool on a late 60's Malibu, would look rediculous on the 2005 Mustang, saw a photo somewhere of a guy with that set up on his 05.

And those 22's with the 2 inch side walls look really funky to me on a beefy car like the Mustang. Looks like your driving on rim.

It definately is a matter of taste, I'm old school too, to a certain degree. But after thumbing through hundreds of photo's of 05's with rim/tire upgrades, the 18's were the most appealing, 255/45's with 285/40's out back. The tires look and really are beefy by todays standards.

I don't think there is any new car that comes with 60+ series tires anymore and thats probably why all your finding are truck tires.

 

Randy, I understand what you're saying, but it's not the only the "series" you should be looking at. That number is simply based on the width. A 215/60 tire isn't going to have as much sidewall as a 255/60. The "series" is actually called the aspect ratio. On a 215/60, the sidewall is 60% of the witdh. (in this case 60% of 215 mm)

I'm surprised you don't like like the stock tires. They are a 235/55/17 and they have over 5" of sidewall. If you still want more you can go down to a 16" wheel and put on a 235/60/16. This will keep your speedo correct and give you a 5.5" sidewall.

 

the stock bullits are sweet looking, fill the fenders and provide alot of tire over the rim

 

Randy... I'm with you 100%

I definitely wanted the "old school" muscle look with my car... and plenty of sidewall. I ended up with 275/50-17s in the back and 255/50-17s up front. I kinda like how it looks now...

 

Yep need some sidewall...

 

Exactly.

 

NO I do like the stock wheels and tires. I esp like the bullets because of the similarity to old Cragers or old Torque thrust. The 55s look pretty good on the GT. It mainly when you go to a lower profile it just doesnt lok quite right. I wouldnt go to 16s because I love my polished 17' bullits. I would like a wider tire on the rear, just dont want it to look shorter than the fronts.

 

Don who makes the 275/50s you have on the rear?

 

As an owner of both new and old mustangs, I have been pondering this myself.

In the 60's, the stock wheel was 14" (sometimes 15"). The factories kept the wheel wells cut smaller so that the wheels looked like they fit. Folks slapped more meat on the wheels to get more traction and there weren't many choices in the aftermarket. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Cragar was the only one, correct (those who were there)? Anyways... The size and shape of the wheel well made this setup look great.

Fastforward to today. Cars are rolling out of the factory with 16 and 17" wheels. The wells are designed to fit this new setup and are much larger than the old school cars'. What does this translate to? A change in thinking. Throwing the old school setup on a new car doesn't look as pleasing.

Just like a set of 17's or 18's look foolishly stupid on the classics (IMHO), a set of 14's or 15's would look the same on these cars. All of that being said... if you went with the 17" bullits and added white letters to the factory profile, I think you'd have a very muscular look that's VERY retro.

Unfortunately, there aren't many choices for white letters anymore. The ones that are out there are not very performance oriented treds.

None the less... I think the factory meats are perfect on the car. You don't want too much, and you don't want too little. That's my take though. Not downing the guys that changed up. Some of those look nice, just not quite as muscle carish as the aformentioned bigger meats/smaller rims.

The aftermarket has certainly caught up though... lots of choices for folks on both sides.

 

Cragar wasn't the only one, not by a long shot. American Racing Torque Thrusts, among other models, came out in the early 60's

Think this is a look you're going to see among the gearheads with 05+ Mustangs. Choices may be limited now - what's with the "Indy 500" and "Nascar badging" on RWL tires? Just show me the darn brand - but I suspect it will expand a bit in the very near future.

 

I have Nitto 450s all the way around.

 

Interresting thoughts! Yeah... I have to agree... I don't want to see a racing league on the freekin' tire. Goodrich still has a set of RWL's, but the tred pattern is... dated. It looks good on the vintage stangs, but the new babys need something a bit more agressive to compliment those bigger rims. I'm biased though. One of the reasons I like newer cars is because they look so good with aggressive tread patterns. Vintage stangs? Not as good.

Didn't know that. Thanks for the info. I have always heard that Cragar is so popular with the hot rodders because it was the first aftermarket wheel and didn't have much competition. Perhpas that was the 50's?

Either way... I stand corrected. Thanks for the info

 

Unfortunatly, the huge wheel well openings combined with the '05's overall stance in the rear are the big culprits that hinder achieving the old school look here, when combined with the tire and rim combinations that are currently available. It's certainly all about proper proportion in any case, depending on which wheel you choose to use, and the overall look one desires.

(Adrenalin's) choice looks pretty good (and much better than stock) for those cars using the 18 in wheels. It looks balanced and with an somewhat aggressive road racer look common to todays cars.
(Don-w's) choice looks equally good for a car wearing the 17 in wheels...and with a more traditional look overall. He has compensated for the smaller wheel in the huge well, by going with the taller profile tire instead.
Both of these combinations look better (IMO) than a smaller (16) or larger (19/20) in wheel might...regardless of how they filled the wheelwell. Those larger or smaller wheels just wouldn't look as correctly proportionate to the car.

Without further resorting to lowering, it would seem that given the size of the opening, the 18 inch tire with a 50 series tire might best achieve the desired old school look, without severly compromising the cars's overall handling characteristics.
My personal "old school" choice would be an 18" wheel and 45/50 series combo on the rear, and perhaps a smaller 17" 50 series wheel/tire combo on the front. The visual difference between the rim sizes front to rear always helps to enhance the illusion of filling the rear well further, even if in actuality it may not be, and assuming the two wheel tire combos had similar overall ride heights.

 

The SS was the first Cragar rim. Cheap, strong, good quality, good looking. Probably very popular on those merits alone. And maybe didn't have much competition in terms of bang for the buck (like the Mustang).

Others had made it to market with aftermarket offerings before them though.