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Another factor was the lowering of the body height, specifically from the road to the floor boards. Measure that on a 32-34 car and then again on a Clipper and I bet you have a 6 inch difference. Entrance into a pre-35 car is a high step up.

Rethinking this, maybe the floor features on the 41-47 Clippers and 48-50 Packards would be better described as wide thresholds rather than quasi running boards since they were inside the body.

(o{}o)

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John (JW), relax. You expressed your approach ("...covered by the bottom of the doors. They were rubber covered...") in a way which everyone can understand.

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Hi

Runningboards were rendered obsolete primarily by greatly improved roads that no longer required high ground clearances. Considerable mileage in new paved roads spread out across the country in those first decades of the 20th Century connecting cities and small towns.

As Dave notes, the lowered construction methods between the '41 Clipper and a Packard of 6-7 years prior is striking. It was evolutionary, through the '34 Chrysler Airflow, '36 Lincoln Zephyr and Cord 810/812, '38 Cadillac 60 Special, every carmaker was there or nearly so by 1940-42.

Postwar, runningboards were the province of commercial vehicles, trucks and that handful of cars of state, where the occupants needed security protection.

Steve

Just to put a number to it, from the ground to the floor board of a '34 Eight sedan is about 19? inches; that's a high step w/o a running board. I don't have a '41 Clipper or later model handy to measure but expect it would be about 10-11 inches.

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Interesting how perception changed through the years. My '10 SRX's sill is around 17 inches up front, slightly more for rear seat. This in a mid-sized crossover rather than full-sized body-on-frame SUV or pick-up. My in-laws had a '98 Ford F-150 with no running boards that required one hoist himself way up yet my short mother-in-law in her 70's did so without complaint.

Maybe folks back in the day had simply gotten used to running boards and weren't ready to give them up so quickly.

Getting in/out of a '38 Super Eight and '33 Pierce-Arrow 836, the boards were completely in the way and not necessary. But my 10 year old would appreciate them as she did several years ago getting into a 138-CD.

Material cost savings, while not a functional reason to delete, was surely a welcome change within the finance department.

As cars got lower and bodies got wider running boards became less of a necessity and more of a nuisance.

Some sporty bodies of the twenties dispensed with running boards but had step plates instead, to help you climb up into the car. By the forties this was no longer necessary. In 1948 Hudson introduced their 'step down' models, you didn't step up into them, you stepped down.