Right, so what I've been looking for are tyres that are 175 80 r15, which seem to be fairly obscure, however I've found 185 and 195 55r15s to be available, now would I be able to jam them onto some 2cv wheels? I've had 195 80 r15s on but they have a much higher side wall for play.

What the feck do you think you want to do that for? I know the 195/80s are knobblies so that's fair enough, but I'm guessing the lower profile ones you've got your eye on are road tyres. I expect it's possible to fit them on a 4" wide rim, but do you really think that's a good idea?

Try taking a rim down to a tyre place and asking them to fit it with a 195 from their pile of scrap tyres, just don't be too surprised when they laugh at you.

Yeah they're semi slicks, I've been trying to get the same mm2/kg of contact patch as an Alfasud on my tyres so that then at least I can hit one of the factors that will contribute to poor handling, shock absorbers next.

buy some good new Shocks first - they are THE biggest improvement you can make to the handling by a loooong way.

Louis, for 4 inch wide rims the ISO standards say the widest tyre you should fit is 155....

It's also worth considering that the increase in unsprung weight from oversized tyres is likely to defeat any possible improvement you can make to the damping.

Ken

195/55s? Gulp. I'm picturing these as having the combination of being wide, flat-surfaced and stiff-walled. All good for road holding. Until you tilt them on their edges...

The front tyres of a 2CV don't lean at crazy angles when turned, do they? Cough. Imagine the front tyres effectively running on their outside edges when you give the steering wheel a good tug...

(I think there is some truth amongst all that supposition... )

Depends on the front arms Louis has, if they're turned until the kingpin is almost upright it won't make much difference assuming his cars low and stiff. If I were you though Louis id get some super cool Peugeot rims that only the coolest cool kids have got, then you can use a wider tyre and it'll not look stupid. I'm not into this gay 'scene' tyre stretching lark that they wank off over on retro rides, but I think trying to get a wide and very low profile tyre on a stock ente rim which will be achieving the opposite is unlikely to help with handling, as others have said, it'll be too heavy probably.

Look at the Belgian racers, the uk spec 2cvs run rings round them on corners don't they?

May I be rude and intrusive and ask which car this is for, and why?

Ami 1500, front arms are race ones with loads of negative camber, so maybe some 165 versions of the Toyos ECAS sell and racers use? the issue is going to be that it'll understeer like mad, so my idea is to run wider tyres at the front than rear, but to also run a slightly stiffer set up at the rear with the damping. This should help to try and get the car 'neutral' trough corners, the aim being to get the car to corner at about 0.9 to 1.0g as the racers can, don't think that I'm going to run stiffer springs, because they're super springs already and I'm not sure that making them much harder would actually make the car any better to drive.

Also how much wider are Pug wheels?