I feel our cars are small enough to use relatively small tires to handle great( I like to reduce unsprung and rotation weight as much as possible). At the moment I'm using 205/50/15 in the front and 225/50/15 in the rear. Very small for the "pro-touring" theme, but as you will see in the article I did rather well. Remember that tire compound is where you gain greater grip than tire width, and I use Toyo RA-1's which are an "R" compound. I used to have wider street tires and never could get close to the handling I have now.
As for the deep dish wheels in the front look at all the modern cars. Notice something? Shallow wheels ( at least in the front anyway). Why? Well there is lots of theory, but the gist is that
1. With a shallow wheel you can have the ball joints closer to the centerline of the tire tread. This distance is called scrub radius. the closer it is to zero the easier it is to steer (I know people that have power steering problems all the time), and the less bump steer you notice(car does not pull to a side on an uneven road or under braking)
2. With the shallow wheels and the ball joints farther out you can have longer a arms so that the
suspension will have a more stable instant center over a greater
suspension travel( car will feel more predictable and stable at speeds in turns).
I'm not an expert on this
suspension theory, but I know people who are so if anyone has questions feel free to ask. you can also find more info in the
www.pro-touring.com and
www.corner-carvers.com forums.
Alcino