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Celebrating 50 years and having built a stellar reputation among auto enthusiasts, Covercraft Industries is well-known as the world’s largest manufacturer of custom-patterned vehicle covers, offering more than 80,000 patterns. Recently, we were treated to one of Covercraft’s newer products, the Fleeced Satin indoor car cover, designed to be a real economic value for indoor and limited outdoor use, as protection for your paint.
Our 1954 Bel Air project car is a real nightmare for car covers with it's radical lines and huge Edelbrock blower sticking out of the hood. Covercraft Industries had us covered with its custom-fit, Fleeced Satin indoor car cover.
Like many street rods and custom builds, our project cars are not always factory spec. While Covercraft currently has more than 80,000 patterns in their library, some car builds are one-of-a-kind. The company has a custom-fit option for these vehicles, offering fleeced satin indoor car covers to handle the most unique builds or one-offs.
Our 1954 Chevrolet Bel Air project car certainly fits that mold of a one-off custom build. The unusual four-door sedan with side mirrors, combined with a massive blower sticking out of the hood, makes this odd shape difficult to conform to with off-the-rack products.
We first became aware of Covercraft’s indoor car covers when the Petersen Automotive Museum opted to protect its specialty cars in The Vault during a major renovation of the facility. After covering the story, Covercraft Protected Priceless Cars In The Vault During Renovation, we jumped at the chance to try the custom-fit fleeced satin indoor cover on our project.
The cover has a great look, which is a bonus considering the protection that the cover offers.
About Covercraft
Like many companies that entered the automotive industry in the 1950s and 1960s, Covercraft founded its operation in car-crazy Southern California. Initially manufacturing covers for custom applications in the street rod segment of the business, the company eventually grew to become the largest manufacturer of custom patterned vehicle covers.
Today, the company is headquartered in Oklahoma and has expanded its product lines to include seat covers, front end masks (bras), dash covers, floor mats, tailgate nets, windshield screens, and many other specialty protection and storage products.
The odd shape of our four-door sedan made it difficult to find a car cover that would fit. Covercraft's indoor fleeced satin car cover has enough stretch that these bulges are not a problem.
Fleeced Satin Has Got You Covered
Fleece, as defined and used in the English language, relates to sheep’s wool (think of Mary’s little lambs with fleece as white as snow … ). The term has come to be used for any material that has a soft nap, similar to wool. The soft nylon fleece used in the construction of Covercraft’s Fleeced Satin car covers is similar to the soft touch of wool.
The super-soft fleece provides a gentle touch to the finish of a vehicle, which can be ultra-important to enthusiasts that want to preserve the original paint or protect a custom paint finish. A problem with any soft nap material is that it allows dust to migrate through the fibers, and can act like a fine grit sandpaper to automotive finishes. This is where the woven polyester outer shell of the car cover comes in to play: by keeping dust on the outside, and not against the car’s paint.
Features And Benefits:
- Woven polyester outer shell
- Super-soft nylon fleece inside
- Gentle touch to fine vehicle finishes
- Designed for indoor use
- Available in red, gray, or black
What Salesmen Won’t Tell You
Car covers can protect, but they can also damage a car’s finish. A loose fitting cover can be worse than having no cover at all. This is where we found Covercraft’s indoor car cover to really shine. For us, a custom-fit car cover makes perfect sense for the best fit available, especially for the one-off cars that require special pattern measuring. Covercraft’s easy-to-use dimension sheet makes it a simple task to get the correct measurements.
Removing the car cover is as easy as the installation.
Normally a one-size-fits-all car cover is not a good option, however the Covercraft crew has painstakingly assembled a massive library of patterns that perfectly fit factory spec cars. The car cover must fit tightly or dirt and dust can get under the cover. Any dust trapped between the paint and the cover can cause scratches as the cover is installed or removed or is moved around by the wind.
Covercraft not only has a tight fit for their car covers, the material in the Fleeced Satin car covers has a slight stretch inherent in the fabric. This stretch allows for a tight, contoured fit similar to their Form Fit covers.
The Final Ruling
Anything that is good enough for a world class museum like the Petersen Automotive Museum, is certainly good enough for us. We care about the finishes of our project cars, regardless of the condition. Every car is treated like a new Ferrari with Covercraft’s Fleeced Satin covers!
Covercraft’s choice of materials and construction feature double-needle-stitched seams with elastic stitched into the front and rear of the cover, making it one of the friendliest for the exterior paint, and the simplest for owner use – a rare economic value in our opinion. For more information on Covercraft Industries and its line of products, visit them at www.covercraft.com.
