My 71 saloon should hae silver. Last year I painted some wheels in white as I prefer the look. Unfortunately the unused tyres were past their sell-by date so they came off the car very sharpish and I'm back on silver wheels at the moment as a temporary measure.
To me, the silver wheels remind me of the BMC loss of direction (rubber bumper mg, minis with black painted trim instead of chrome etc.. etc..)
I've seen a lot of people spray piant the wheels and it just looks a mess (and a few cars where they did a great job). Spraypainting is fine if the wheel is in good condition to start with and it is carefully prepared. Unless the car is concours then brushpainting can be pefectly adequate. I use DIY centre magnolia paint as a £5 tin will do about 15 wheels and a few grilles as well - The colour looks like 30 year old old english white

To get very close to old english white, it needs a mix of approx 70% white and 30% magnolia.
Brushpaint is also thicker (it hides more stuff) so this can save a lot of time trying to achive a perfect flat finish during preparation. If you have lots of other jobs to do then spending a weekend trying to get the wheels perfect isn't an effiient use of time, when you can get 90% there in just a few hours by brushpainting.