I don't think you destroyed the thread; reality is that there is no performance advantage in real life. In theory, if you road race or autocross a car, a shorter sidewall theoretically makes the response crisper (on something like a Camaro or Mustang with 450 horsepower), but I remember an autocross test in Car and Driver or Grassroots Motorsports magazine where they increased the wheel diameter on some kind of medium-horsepower car.

The result was that increasing wheel size a bit (from the stock 15" to 16" and going a bit wider) gave the best performance advantage. Beyond that, going to 17" or 18" wheels slowed the car down because of increased wheel and tire weight.

On a pickup truck, the current 10 foot tall designs make 20" wheels look properly scaled to the truck size--but the $ cost is big. I would personally prefer nothing larger than a 17" or 18" wheel as a compromise for weight, cost, and performance on any kind of truck or non-ultra high performance car. There is a legit reason in having to increase standard wheel size from 15" to, say, 17" on even a base truck, because brakes are larger.

IMO the giant diameter stuff is a pure waste of money and is for looks alone. And if you are talking about an AWD vehicle (MKX?) that requires all 4 tires to be the same diameter with very little variation, if you trash one tire (like bubble it by whacking a chuckhole), buying 4 new matching tires gets that much crazier in terms of cost.

Of course, I'm in Detroit and the ghetto bling guys not only spend 4 grand on Chinese made chrome 24" or 26" wheels, they also have to get giant chrome stick on numbers to advertise 24" or 26"... Makes as much sense as wearing pants around your knees.

George