Don,

No offense, but I just can't look at diamond plate on anything but a trailer floor or a truck bed. It makes my eyeballs hurt. A defective gene, I suppose.

I approached the problem two ways:

1. I painted the running boards on my '31 A-bone. I stepped over them, and informed anyone riding with me that stepping on a running board would be grounds for summary execution.

2. My '34 coupe has no fenders, hence no running boards.

Problem solved.