First of all I am not anti American cars, they are sure coming along but I recently was stuck at an intersection at a red light that took for ever to change green and in that time I made an interesting observation. I noticed that there was an esthetics problem with the American cars that were rolling past me for their green light. The wheels in most of the American cars just did not fit in the wheel well right. They were often too small for the opening and the body of car looks like it was sitting too high. Now I know the reason for this is the new thinking that one chassis can be used to make several different car brands but it looks bad. I did not notice this with the foreign cars. Almost perfect for all of them. Too bad, because there are a lot of beautiful cars out there that could be so much better looking if you took all that open space out of the wheel wells. I don't think we will have this problem with the gt version but not so sure with the base model. Guess it will not be a prob for me cause the gt version will be sitting in my drive in about a year.

I think Chrysler/Dodge have done a good job of putting appropriately sized wheels on to cars with increasing large wheel wells.

I agree, although I think GM and Chrysler are getting it right moreso than Ford. But having the wheel actually fill up the wheelwell is certainly better for aesthetics and I think is the direction every automaker is *trying* to head.

I agree with the OP, the wheels on American cars do seem to fit weird. I never thought it really degraded the look of the car, but it does definitely seem odd.

But thats why we buy big American SUVs and cars, to throw big wheels on them. The day will come when 20s are standard practice on everything.

It has always been about wheel travel, which American cars and trucks always have more of. Potholes do not seem to exist where the foreign cars are designed so they design in less wheel travel. Look at a pickup, there is almost room enough between the top of tire and bottom of fender liner for an extra full tire.