Although the Ford Mustang is one of the most prominent sports cars on the street in North America with possibly the largest number of specific fit wheels, it can be a daunting task when getting ready to buy. This can especially be the case when your not sure what your really looking for.
Hopefully we can make a great stab at simplifying things so that most of us can have a great understanding of the concepts involved with why some wheels fit and why others don't. Most retailers display
Mustang Wheels in multiple categories by style to better help people to navigate to the rims that best fit their style.
Now most Mustang Wheels stay relatively consistent on the Mustang on the same body style. The only exceptions are models inside the same body style that generally have much larger brakes than others and even this only effects a small percentage of wheels that generally fit your Mustang body style.
Mustang Wheels for Your Model
The classic Mustang's in the 5-lug PCD (bolt pattern) typically are made in a 0 to +12mm offset depending on the wheel width and the most common diameter is 16" to 17". Generally these vintage cars don't use anything wider than a 7 to 8 inch width in the front and no wider than a 9 inch width for the rear. The bolt pattern for these cars are 5X114.3 or 5X4.5 which just so happens to be exactly the same on any year model Mustang that came factory in a 5-lug.
Vintage Mustang Wheels typically also have a very retro old school domestic Muscle look which suites these Classic Mustangs best.
The 1987-1993 4-lug Mustang Wheels are a 4X107.95 or 4X4.25. This has been a market that has grown dramatically for 87-93 owners over the past 3years and the selection of wheels and research in this market is better than ever before. Some of the most popular wheel styles tend to be the
Saleen SC Wheels and the
SVE 10th Anniversary Cobra Wheels. These wheels generally have a +17 to +24mm offset.
The 1994-2004 Mustang also use Ford's standard 5X114.3/5X4.5 bolt pattern and commonly uses a +19 to +27mm offset depending on the wheel width. This market is packed full of popular styles and is fairly easy to shop. All models including the V6 and V8 GT can all utilize the same Mustang wheel styles. The Cobra, Bullet and Mach I also have very few restrictions.
The 2005-2009 and
2010 Mustang also use Ford Ford's standard 5X114.3/5X4.5 bolt pattern. The newer Mustang platform does however use a higher offset wheel. The new body styles use on average a minimum of a +24mm to +53mm depending on the wheel width and diameter. These cars typically run 18" to 20" aftermarket wheel diameters. Larger wheels on the new Mustang tend to be more popular as this car came standard with a larger diameter tire than previous body styles and as such needed a larger rim to keep a realistic profile on the tire for optimum handling.
From the example above you can see why the same rim diameter may look different on different Mustang body styles. As illustrated the 1994-2004 Mustang has a 26 inch tire so an 18 inch wheel clearly shows a relatively performance profile. However the illustration shows that an 18 inch wheel on the 05-11 Ford Mustang is much taller as the tire diameter is 1 inch larger. This essentially means that the newer body style can safely run larger wheels due to its bigger tire.
Mustang Tires
When buying
mustang tires hopefully some of the above illustrations provide some help even when looking for proper tires. When buying a tire you want to insure that the tire being purchased is close to the same diameter as the original oem tire. This can be done even if changing wheel diameter as the wheel has nothing to do with your tire diameter. The diameter of your tire is completely controlled by the width and aspect ratio of the tire. For example a 245/40-18 is a 26 inch tire for a 94-04 Mustang. In a similar example a 245/45-18 is almost a 27 inch tire more suited for the 2005-2011 Mustang.
