My little pickup truck — with a 2.4-liter, four-cylinder engine — has exactly the same size wheels and tires (225/70R-15) as the ones my 1976 Pontiac Trans Am — with a 7.5-liter V-8 engine — was shod with when it rolled off the Norwood, Ohio, assembly line back when Jimmah Cahter was angling to be the country's next decider.

No classic muscle car came from the factory with wheels larger than those commonly fitted to today's economy cars. Many came with 14s. You can get a new Prius with 17s. No muscle car from the '60s or '70s ever came with tires larger than 15s.

The small size of muscle car wheels and tires relative to the size of their engines — and their output of horsepower and torque — is considered a deficit today. It's argued — correctly — that classic muscle cars aren't as quick as they could be because you can't lay down V-8 engine power on four-cylinder-sized wheels (and tires).

Well, you can — it just goes up in smoke.

But — to me — this is part of the fun of owning an old muscle car. I submit that modern performance cars are less fun — though they are much quicker — because the experience is more anodyne. You go straight — not sideways. It is much harder to chirp 17- or 18-inch tires on the 1-2 upshift.

They hook up almost too well.

All-wheel-drive performance cars are the worst in this respect. They have so much grip it's almost a nonevent. I'd rather go sideways, smoking and chirping. I like the challenge of trying to keep the thing from going up a tree, feeding just enough throttle to keep it on the knife-edge of control, just barely.

Same goes in the corners, where the classic muscle car's sideways grip is also much lower than almost any modern ordinary car.

It is easier to get a classic muscle car's tail out and steer the thing as much with your right foot as with your white-knuckled hands. You may not corner faster than a Camry — but you will have more fun cornering than you will in a Corvette, which has cornering limits so high it's almost impossible to reach them.

But then, I am a hooligan and a freak, and my views are probably not representative.

There is also the aesthetic issue. Small though they were relative to the capabilities of the cars, muscle car wheels looked great — and were much more distinctive. The brand- and model-specific wheels were part of the package. A connoisseur can identify a classic muscle car under a tarp — by its wheels.

Only Pontiacs had Honeycomb and Snowflake wheels. Only Fords had Magnum 500s — and so on. Like steering wheels (which were ruined — homogenized — by air bags), modern wheels are bleakly generic — large but one-size-fits-all.

Wheels larger than 17s also look awkward on cars designed decades before wheels that large — that tall — became available. The proportions are wrong. The relationship of the wheels (and short sidewall tires) to the wheelhouse — and to the car itself — doesn't look right.

There is a functional issue to consider, too.

Swapping a muscle car's factory 14- or 15-inch wheels and tires for 17- or 18-inch wheels and tires without making other, probably drastic, changes will likely queer the factory suspension geometry of these 50-year-old cars. Seventeen-and-up wheels/tires may not even physically fit, and they will add a lot of rolling resistance, despite these wheels being (usually) alloy versus steel.

This will probably negatively affect steering — and braking, too.

I suspect it would be necessary to heavily modify the rest of the car — its suspension, steering and brakes, and maybe even the body — to get 17s-and-up to fit and for the car to sit and steer correctly. And many people do exactly that, replacing the factory steel control arms and coils, etc., with modern tubular A-arms and even coil overs. Big brakes, rolled fenders — even tubs.

But now you have a modern car that looks like a classic car — and in that case, why not just buy the modern car?

You've lost the experience of driving the classic car.

Which arguably defeats the whole point of owning the classic car — unless all you care about is how it looks.

It's a shame it's an either-or situation. And it is, because there's no middle-ground option. You have to jump from 15-inch wheels to at least 17s. And to generic wheels.

But why not 16s? In the stock patterns?

I would, if I had the money, consider having a set of 16-by-8-inch Honeycombs made for my Trans Am. These would be larger (and wider) than the factory 15-by-7-inch wheels but not as obviously so — and not as preposterously tall. I could use tires with sidewall height not too far off what was stock. The car would sit right, and it would probably handle right, without doing major mods to the suspension, brakes or steering.

It would also allow me to shoe the Trans Am with tires rated for the speed it's capable of, the factory 455's output having been upgraded since Jimmah Cahter was decider. The Great Pumpkin is probably capable of pegging the 160 mph — something it could not do back in '76 — but even I am not willing to make the attempt on BFGoodrich radial T/A tires.

These look great — with snarky white lettering, just like the Trans Am's original Uniroyal tires — but they aren't high-speed tires. They are, basically, all-season radials — as is the case with pretty much any tire you can find in a 15-inch size.

The BFGoodrich tires carry an S-speed rating, which means they are fine for up to 112 mph — Prius speed.

I'd like at least an H-rated tire, good for 130 mph — which would give me enough comfort margin to exceed that by 20 mph or so for a few fun seconds. But pushing the limit by 40 mph or more doesn't seem ... prudent.

A 16-by-8-inch wheel would be ideal. There are H-rated- and higher-performance tires available for that size. And that size would look right on a classic muscle car like my Trans Am. They would look like the factory wheels, without being obviously aftermarket wheels — 16-by-8-inch Honeycombs for classic Pontiacs, 16-by-8-inch Magnum 500s for classic Fords.

You could still lay rubber — and chirp the tires, too.

Which would be ... What did they used to call it? Fun!

Eric's new book, "Don't Get Taken for a Ride!" is available now. To find out more about Eric and read his past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.