Okay I'm replying to my own message now, but only because I've spent a couple of lunch breaks swotting up on wheels and tyres so I can be a bit more specific.
The wheels I was gonna buy were 14x6 with triumph stud pattern and 12mm offset which I believe is as on the spitfire.
However a good fit will presumably also depend on the tyre size. I checked on Chris Longhurst's car bible pages and on our own James Carruthers' web page and it seems that 165/60 R14, 175/65 R14 or 185/60 R14 seem to keep the rolling circumpherence about the same. I am aware that having wheels too wide can be bad in the wet and previous posts have said that 185s are too wide. I am however concerned that the rims may be too wide for the 165s and 175s.
Chris' page has a rim width calculator that says the 165s should idealy be on 4.5" rims up to a max of 6" and the 175s should be on 5" rims up to a max of 6.5".
As far as rubbing is concerned it seems people hav fitted 175s without much dificulty, plus there is a section on Chris' site that says that narrower rims than ideal cause balloning the tyres become wider than spec, presumably this would mean that if I have slightly wider rims the tyres shouldn't ballon so (touch wood) won't rub. (James- Maybe this could be your next project, add ballooning to your tyre compare-o-rama)

From this it seems that 175s would be okay overall, but can anyone see any screw ups in my logic? On the flipside if anyone feels that 14x6 wheels with 12mm offset with 175/60 R14 tyres should work, please let me know, it'd make me a lot more comfortable about buying the wheels.

Ta very much everyone

Phil

Section : Wheels and Tyres

What Wheels fit

Followups :

What Wheels fit