Anyone any examples of the right sort of material to make a custom outdoor car cover from?

I hunted for this recently and couldn't find it for less than the cost of a tailored cover anyway.

rip stop sail material? we made a surrey roof out of that and its been very tough and er no rips...

Ripstop does tend to die in UV pretty quick though. Also, you ideally want it to be a bit heavy (which ripstop usually isn't unless it's really thick and then it's abrasive). Use someone like Point North - they'll send you a bunch of samples for about £2 so you can assess all their waterproof fabrics. For mine it looked like I'd need about 18m of fabric at £13 per metre. Plus about a day of cutting it up and sewing/sealing. Will do it for the build when it's done just to get a bespoke solution but not for my tintop, halfrauds £50 one is doing that trick perfectly and is surprisingly good quality.

Look up Kayospuce. They'll have more than what you are after, fittings and all.

http://www.kayospruce.com/

If you go to the counter in person, the prices drop dramatically.

Cheers
Nev.