My 1978 has the original aluminum wheels and I believe the correct look is for the open slots ( don't know the technical word for them) but anyway they do not look to good.  I can get the outer to shine up well with Mothers aluminum wheel polish and cleaner and the inner ring around the hub capand lug nuts but the open slots look really bad. i am not sure if one time someone painted them black like some although I believe that was for 77 or 79 yr models and then tried to clean them or paint them back to chrom/alluminum??? not sure but can I try to brush them down to the original aluminum or will this destroy them?? and the slots would not be exactly the same shinny aluminum either since they are the cut sieds??? or am I wrong.  one option is to paint them black but not sure I want that look and not sure it was done on the 78's... or do I have to paint them aluminum/silver/chrom or can I take a drill with a wire brush to clean and scrape whatever is o them now to shine them up???  Please help and hop this all makes sense, once I figure out how to get a picture on here I can show you but no success with that yet!!! Thanks BB 78

The inside area of the slots were natural...no paint, or coatings, from the factory. They were not "finished" at all...fairly rough surface on some of them. About the best you can do is clean the area with aluminuminum wheel cleaner, which will pretty much ruin the nice polish you just put on the rim area! Steel wool, or a Scotch-brite pad and some household cleanser will clean the area pretty well, without doing any major damage to the polished area.

Some folks paint that area to match their cars, which looks pretty neat.

I painted the slots black on our '78 PC.  Looks good!  Put masking tape over slots on outside.  Spray painted from back side of wheel.  Good luck with your decision as to what to do.  Take care

My slots are the on polished but I just want to get an even look some have a alum/gray/black spots and just want to get it clean and even look . I did not know if yo can brush them down with a drill and wire brush or how to take the grit off without damaging the rim. I relaize they will not sshine up like the rim but just want a clean look. I do like the black slots but afraid once I paint them will always be touching them up and the original for the 78 non pc I believe are aluminum. Ok will try cleaning them with pad and alum cleaner first. Thanks  for info Mark