15x8 w/ 4.5” BS on front/good handling size?

15x7 with a 4.25" backspace (or more if you can find it) is about the best you'll do, as others have already said. 225/60/15 is about the max unless you find a wheel with more backspacing, but you'll run out of clearance to hard parts before you get to 5" of backspace.

An 8" wide rim on the front of an A body really requires a 17" or 18" diameter rim to actually make use of the rim width. With a 15" rim you can't run enough backspace before running into interference with the brakes/control arms to to actually use the 15x8" for a tire you couldn't just as easily put on a 15x7.

Now, a 17x8 with 5.6" of backspace and a 245/45/17 all day long, maybe even a 255 on some cars.