I think this sort of thing started out with the “tuner” crowd, and has grown from that. I think they look rediculous, but that’s strictly MHO. What kills me is people who take these things and put them on what would be considered a “traditional” mid-sixties muscle car. It looks absolutely absurd.
Look at any true race car, such as F1 or Indycar, they don’t use rubber band tires.
Strictly a fashion statement. To me, it’s like the “monochrome” look, when people were taking all of the chrome off of custom cars. You hardly ever see that now. Even with Detroit, especially trucks, chrome is making a comeback.
Dr, I agree, but it’s all purely a matter of taste. I remember in the early '70’s putting “60 series” tires on my new Vega (that was considered low profile in those days) as well as front and rear spoilers (I could SWEAR they made my car go faster). It’s all young folks just having fun. Better they get interesting in fancying up their cars than in the art of mixology.
Ancient, Jurassic, thread I know, but I felt the need to add some thoughts
While looks may be the #1 ‘driver’ of wide tires with no measurable sidewall on Boeing-sized rims, I learned of a possible top-three reason, though I don’t remember where I read it or was told:
Wheels/rims started getting bigger as early as the late 1990s, when brake designers realized the best way to disperse heat and improve efficacy of brakes was to have larger hardware (drums or discs, shoes or calipers, pick your pleasure). And to accomplish that, without resorting to drastically increasing the overall inflated diameter of the tire & wheel ppackage, they simply displaced the wheel and tire outward, via a greater diameter wheel wrapped in a wider tire with lower section height: (left front of vehicle driving away from us)
Still, I’ve driven cars on a variety of examples of tire section height, from 75-series 14s down to 45-series 18s, and overall, I prefer the driving and handling feel of at least a 60-series profile tire up to 75-series, on whatever rim diameter the designers chose.
Brake engineers have always known this. It is math. But if your marking people say, we WILL use 15 inch wheels, that is the space you have.
The positive offset, as it is called has little to do with the brakes and much to do with the steering angles. Positive offset allows the ball joint to be placed farther outboard. That pushes the steering axis angles out so that the center of the tire and the the steering axis line are very close to the same point. This reduces tire scrub radius, adds steering feel and reduces steering effort. Plus it greatly reduces the effect of bumps on the road kicking back through the steering wheel.
Big wheels with low profile tires and big brakes are a chicken and egg story, which came first?
CapriRacer can weigh in here, but tires progressed from a 90 series tire on 24 inch wheels in the 19-teens to the 75 series on 14 or 15 inch wheels the 50s to the 70 series Wide Oval tires in the late 60s and then 60s, and later 50s for high performance tires in the 70s most on 15 inch wheels. The 1980s saw the factory introduction of a wide (255mm) 50 series tire on 16 inch wheels on the Corvette. Brakes were bigger, handling was better but the styling was king! Designers LOVED those big wheels. So much that they started slapping big wheels with low profile tires on EVERYthing they could. The bigger, the better!
This was also a period that saw aero improvements so that even a 4 popper in a Cavalier or K-car could exceed 100 mph. More math here…. energy to be dissipated by the brakes is Mass x Velocity^2. More speed means way more brake.
Many cars (and trucks) were equipped with brakes that would fit a 15 inch wheel on the base car but looks silly behind the optional 18s. Brake packages started to follow the performance packages with big wheels… 12 inch rotors on the V6 mustang, 13s on the V8s and 14s or 15 inch rotors with the performance 19 inch wheels and very low profile tires.
Bias tires have a problem. There’s a practical manufacturing limit to how low an aspect ratio a tire can be made. Lower is more difficult. Radial tires don’t have this problem.
Plus, somewhere in the late 1970’s early 1980’s, the OEM’s found that cars handled better with bigger rubber - and by that I mean feel, not cornering power. The easy way to get a bigger tire was to go wider with a lower aspect ratio.
And the marketing guys just loved how the public responded to the more “Racy” look.
I will say I spent much of my career developing technology to provide both that cushy ride and sports car handling in the same car. Shocks with wires, computers and magic fluids.
My current Mustang benefits from MagneRide, a product I helped develop.
And then cars with shocks and springs replaced with hydraulic cylinders, accumulators, pumps and computers to vary damping springing and act as the stab bars. Brilliant but complicated, expensive, heavy and mpg killing… but rides like a 69 Caddy and handled like a 2020 Camaro. Did not sell but did impress.
Wow. Well that points to the same thing I’ve alluded to, and was criticized for by the way: That in general, not in every case, older cars feel more connected to the road than do modern whiz-b a n g- mobiles.
That’s for sure! I know it all too well - mine get shot down like Zeros over the Pacific!
Big difference Chris, is that asemaster just told us his preferences, that is it, he did not go into extreme detail and go on and on about why that is his preference and that it should be everyone’s preference, he does not expect everyone to think the way he does, but you go on and on about your preference and why it is better and how it is better and you try to make everyone think the way that you think…
My preference for old hot rods are Mopar’s, and Twin Turbo’s are GM’s, we know and respect each others preference and you have never heard either one of us say my brand is better than your brand, we say what our preference is and move on, if you were into old hot rods and fast cars like us, you would be telling us that we needed to swap over to your brand cause it is better than the brand that we like, and you would go on and on about it and somehow expect us to agree with you, a good example of all of this, is you just posted in this 13 year old dead thread about “Why skinny tires” to try to possibly prove your point again about your preference, and you started a thread called “Wide vs narrow tires - I rest my case”, trying to force everyone to agree with your preference…
And when you keep challenging people about the same topic over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, it gets old real quick…
Funny, my best friend has been married and devoiced 4 times and years ago, he kept telling me this and that about his ex’s, I said you do realize the one thing all 4 ex’s have in common was YOU (my friend), so maybe you need to take a good long look in the mirror and get a reality check…
Well Chris, you have often said you have issues and have even been banned from other forums about discussing this and that, I will ask you this, What do all these forums/members that have banned/criticized you, all have in common?? You, so maybe you need to take a long hard look in the mirror to get a reality check…
Maybe, as some other people in my life have told me, its “How I come across”. Your “presentation, Chris” they would say.
A normal job interview, for me, is one of the most difficult human interactions I’ve ever been a part of. But I don’t know if the pedantry you pointed out is my problem there. Not having a ‘normal’ social life from the ages of 5-15 probably did a number on my interpersonals.
Back to the wide/narrow tires issue:
A lot of what I state is based on science, and not always just my preference.
Both wide/low profile tires and narrow/high profiles have scientifically proven advantages to them. I just prefer the advanatges of the latter. Where my ‘issue’ comes into play is the present scarcity of cars nowadays with higher profile (60-series) and up, tires as original equipment.
I was actually trying to make the opposite point. The 08 Town Car I had did a great job of disconnecting me from the road, which is what that car is supposed to do. Smooth, quiet, floaty, relaxed. Driving through turns was better described as aiming rather than steering. The 14 Ford Flex has more feedback and is more responsive. If I break a wheel loose accelerating too hard in the rain, I can hear it and feel it in the Flex. Not so much in the Town Car.
Taken to an extreme, let’s ask which car feels more connected to the road, a Civic or an Escalade? Most people would answer the Civic. So which car is the better one to drive? The Escalade.
