Changing the 250SE back to the correct wheel trims

My 250SE has been ‘wearing’ 280 style hubcaps since I got it, but I had always wanted to convert it back to the correct style.   As it happened, a box containing the original headlights and the original hubcaps for this car was found by a previous owner and re-united with the car.   The outer beauty rings were missing, but I had a set of those already I purchased when a Mercedes dismantling company was closing down.

Both the original hubcaps and the beauty rings were very dirty, but a few hours of cleaning and polishing with autosol got them to a reasonable level.   (before and after).

It is also interesting to compare the two styles side by side:

The 250SE has a distinctive look and I wanted to bring that back.   I much prefer the two piece style to the later one piece hubcaps.  Next step is to change the v8 style headlights for the original style.