Plus five inches for the wheels
05/29/2018
It's hard to imagine nowadays, but around 40 years ago, 13-inch wheels were standard equipment for many car buyers. Even a VW Golf GTI had 13-inch wheels, and the simpler Golf L had them anyway. They were fitted with 155 SR 13 tires.
In modern times, 18-inch wheels are almost standard equipment or at least a popular option when ordering a new car. And if it's an SUV, it can also be 19-, 20- or even 22-inch wheels. And of course they are not 15.5 cm wide, but 20.5 or even 24.5 cm.
It is easy to understand why these large wheels are significantly heavier than the 13-inch steel rims of the VW Golf from back then, despite the use of light alloy. However, it would no longer be possible to bolt 13-inch wheels onto a VW Golf today, because the brake disks have also grown considerably due to the significantly improved driving performance and there would no longer be room for them in the small wheels.
The fact that much wider tires are mounted on larger rims today is only partly due to the driving dynamics. It is primarily visual arguments that make buyers tend to opt for large wheels.
And there are also good reasons why car manufacturers have always carried out fuel consumption measurements with the smallest possible tires in the past; in fact, there can easily be 0.5 or more liters of fuel consumption per 100 km between the narrowest and the widest wheels. In future, all combinations will have to be measured and declared.
Incidentally, the two cars in the picture are shown plus/minus the same scale, and it's not just the wheels that are bigger on the current Golf ...