When I was a kid, the cars had solid steel dashboards, shallow from front to back, and the front seat riders were located closer to the dash and windshield than today. 1950s brought the "curved windshield" which wrapped around at the sides, requiring support from below. This moved the occupants farther back, and dashboards had more complex curved features, don't think they were padded yet. The padded idea stems from added safety, I suppose, as well as allowing more gaudy shapes and colors. Lacking today's active restraints, severe front-end collisions commonly threw people forward against the dash or even the windshield. The padding was like foam covered with a thin vinyl covering. As the stuff aged, it became brittle and cracked, within a couple of years sometimes. This exposed thin, sharp edges of the hardened vinyl capable of slicing the flesh. There went the safety factor. The Tucker Torpedo may have been the first car having a padded dash: I did not research the fact. Car safety in 1948 didn't amount to much. As one source says, "As late as the 1940's auto industry regulation was limited to vehicle design legislation, with little movement towards the comprehensive regulatory system that exists today," but Preston Tucker was very concerned about safety when he created the Tucker '48. Several features were original to the Tucker. One was the "Cyclops-eye" headlight which was a third headlight in the center front of the car. It turned with the steering wheel to illuminate the driver’s path during a turn. Other original features included a padded dashboard, a windshield that popped out on impact, and a crash chamber on the passenger side. In case of an oncoming car, the passenger could crawl into the chamber to lessen the impact. The Tucker plant in Chicago was originally a Dodge Brothers automobile plant. During WW-II, Ford took it over and built aircraft engines there. The die set my Dad built to form and blank the 2-foot by 10-foot sections of "landing mat" to be used in the South Pacific, he had hauled to that plant to test it, as they had large enough punch presses. He said the building shook! Here's an early view of that immense plant, with a short 10-inch section sawed off the piece he produced during testing. Below, the underside of the part: Here, the top side, upon which giant B-29s landed and took off from, on the sandy island soil. The left edge is as the die formed it, the right edge shows where the saw cut off the piece from the 10-foot long complete section. The hooks locked the pieces together, side by side. Tens of thousands of these big strips of aluminum, nearly 1/4-inch thick, were produced and shipped to Tinian Island, among others. Most of the landing mat was abandoned there when the war ended, to be pillaged by scavenging folks. Bit off the OP, but all a part of the same "reminisce", IMO. Frank