Car Cover Recommendations

[foothilltom 33]

Howdy gents and happy early holidays.

 

Am looking to buy the boy a quality car cover for his 69 coupe for Christmas. It (unfortunately) spends most of its time outside. Am looking for a cover that will last a few years and do a good job protecting against the elements.

 

We get a tiny bit of snow, but not a lot. Fair amount of rain. Hot in the summer.

 

I have obviously googled around but was hoping to get some actual recommendations from guys who have actually used them.

 

A custom cover would be swell for best fit.

 

 

Thanks!

Tom

[Big Secz 26]

The best custom fit cover I ever used was made by Wolf Automotive. It fit perfect and tight, never even had to tie it down. Unfortunately last winter when a garage fell on my vert it ripped a huge hole in the cover and my roof. By this time Wolf Automotive was out of business. I did a little research and ended up ordering mine from California Car Covers paid over $300 for a "custom" fit cover and the fit isn't the best. Their covers have not pockets for side mirrors and the entire cover is a little big. It only comes with one hole on each side to tie it down and the fit was so loose that it was still blowing off the car. I ended up having to mark two holes in the front and back of the cover and send it back to them to add the gromets. Now it's tied down with two cables going front to back and one from side to side. It stays on well now but I'm just not happy with the fit.

 

I did a quick search and it looks like maybe they have started up again http://www.global-accessories.com/carcovers/wolfcovers/wolfcovers_custom.html I ordered the NOAH material and have found that to be the best all weather material.

[rangerdoc 22]

Glad you started this thread. My coupe will be out of the shop soon and I want a high quality cover as well.

[Big Secz 26]

My vert is out of a garage 8 months out of the year. I only garage it during the winter. I have found that the NOAH material is the best all around protection.

[foothilltom 33]

Thanks for the info Big Secz. I have scoured for the Wolf NOAH brand and found at least one site that carries it for $220-ish. The thing is, it doesn't have mirror pockets for the coupe/vert. It has mirror pockets for Fastbacks only, which I find odd.

 

So my next dumb question is: do you think I'd be better off ordering a fastback cover for a coupe in order to get the mirror pockets or do you think I'd be trading one feature for bad fit? I don't have a fastback nearby to measure, but I'd like to think the overall dimensions are the same?

 

Input appreciated.

Tom

[rangerdoc 22]

Man, you're hitting the exact questions I have. My car is just like yours with the sport mirrors on both sides as well as a front spoiler and duck tail spoiler. I was also debating the FB cover.

 

What is the advantage of the mirror pockets? Does it just keep the cover from rubbing against the paint?

[foothilltom 33]

Hey Ranger, I just spoke with a tech guy from a cover store (Covercraft) and his opinion is the fastback cover would be a poor fit for the coupe and he didn't recommend it.

 

The advantage of mirror pockets is fit: it allows the cover to hug the sides better. Strange they don't provide that option for the coupe but it seems universal from my research so far.

 

The guy said they would provide mirror pockets separately with your order and you would have to get them "sewn in" yourself. This is intriguing, but I don't have the kung fu to do that nor do I know and seamstresses!

 

At this point, I'll probably order the coupe version with the separate mirror pouches and potentially deal with that later.

 

The website i'm using is:

 

http://www.carcoverusa.com/Wolf-Car-Covers.html

 

Last thing...the Wolf name appears to be a brand and the logo appears on the site. However, I'm not sure if it is truly a Wolf brand by the time you specify your car and see the options. More later.

 

tom

[Big Secz 26]

When I ordered my original Wolf cover it was from Virginia Classic Mustang, when I went to reorder my new one I saw they no longer carried it and when I finally ordered my new cover I found out talking to a customer service rep that Wolf had gone out of business.

 

I ordered mine from California Car Cover. Mine doesn't have mirror pockets either but it's large enought it's not necessary. When I spoke to them on the phone they said that I could mark where I wanted the mirror pockets and send the cover back and they would install them for me. Once I got the car cover and fitted it and realized that it was slightly over-sized I opted to not go with the mirror pockets at all.

 

Don't get me wrong the fit isn't that bad, it's just slightly over-sized compared to the Wolf cover that I had. The issue I had due to the larger size was when I tied it down using the two side gromets the wind would get in under the sides of the car cover and create a huge balloon under the cover until the whole front of the cover would blow over the back half of the car. The solution was to have them add two more gromets to the center of the front spaced about 18" apart and add two gromets to the rear spaced the same. Now I tie it down with two cables front to back and one cable side to side and it fixed the problem.

[rangerdoc 22]

Good info folks. I talked to my paint/body guy today about what he uses for car covers. His pride car is a $150k Super Bird that he had a cover custom made for. Anyways, he also uses California Car Cover but he only orders their flanal for indoor use as he says it is the softest material available. He doesn't ever keep a car outside so that isn't an issue for him. I don't plan on my car ever being outside either, but strange things happen at car shows and such so I think having a cover that can get wet is a good idea.

 

I may be cheap and just use the one I have for my Bullitt for now. But I may order that Wolf one from the first link a little later.

[Pakrat 1,043]

I've used a variety of car covers years ago and I found that the one I bought as generic based on my cars body style and overall length/width actually fit better than the first one I had bought specific for my Mustang and it was less expensive. It had bunched elastic corners that allowed me to fit it snugly over the bumpers and the basic grommet at the bottom of each door that you could tie or lock with a cable. Regardless of what way you go my only pieces of advice are:

1) do not get waterproof, get breathable water resistant instead. Better to have a little mositure seep thru then to not be able to breath at all and get mold in the rain or have it acidentally stick to the paint in the hot sun.

2) If you have hood pins or any other pointy protruberances on the car like Shelby mirrors or an electric antenna without a hole and grommet for the antenna to stick thru, etc then proactively reinforce the backside of that area on the cover with a small patch of duct tape or whatever. Better to do this now then to have to do it when a hole wears thru which it will at some point.

3) If you choose to use the cable and pad lock across the bottom of the doors instead of a tie down then do not leave the cable with the extra foot or so of slack in it, spend a few extra dollars on a new crimp and cut it to exact snug length. With the slack left in one good wind storm will make the cover lift off and rotate leaving a banging pad lock rubbing all over the side of your door causing more harm than good.

 

I speak from painful experience on all of these points, especially the last one.

 

As for the differences in the fastback and coupe covers, many more coupes than fastbacks came with just a driver mirror which is probably why they don't come with pockets and the reason the fastback cover is a poor fit to the coupe in additon to the obvious rear roof line, the windshield rake is also totally different than the coupe/vert, this just makes the whole thing fit real baggy on top.