To me that is a bit of a silly comparison. Vanagons are designed and
built for completely different missions than those 2 seater high
performance cars. I have yet to see any of those you mentioned 10 miles
up an old logging road with full camping gear on board. If someone who
had one those cars wanted to commonly take it where we commonly go with
a Westy, the first thing they would do is change the wheels/tires and
modify the suspensions to be more like ours.

Tires are a bit like shoes. There are special types for many special
purposes. Bowling shoes will not fair well on Everest. Mountaineering
footwear is rarely seen on the jogging trail. Sure, it could be done,
but it would be silly. The more extreme purpose the shoe is optimized
for the less suitable it is for many other uses. Plus the cost goes way up.

A close relative of mine just got sticker shock when he needed to
replace the staggered tires on his performance car at 22k miles. The
estimate for 4 tires was $1400, unless he wanted top end brands for
$2000 a set. It would have been cheaper to replace the wheels and tires
with new wheels in an even size available on the same car, since the car
was sold with various wheel options and his was the more extreme.

Mark

Scott Daniel - Turbovans wrote:
> there's a lot more that goes into when a tire will fail than just wheel,
> diameter, and aspect ratio of the tire.
>..............
> check out any modern 2WD rear wheel drive performance car
> ..........ferrari,
> porsche, coverette etc.
> if the front tires are say   245/55 R 17 .....
> the rears will always be a lower aspect ratio, but a bigger cross section
> number ( the first # in the tire size ) ....
> a car with 245/55's on the front, might have 255/50's on the rear for
> example.
>
> ..............