SPF 50+ for Your Cabriolet

The leaves haven't come out quite yet, but the sun will be here before you know it.

The summer is almost here. Now is the time to anticipate its sunniest, happiest days ahead with these two must-have purchases for anyone who owns an A124 Cabriolet. 

The first is a Covercraft interior cover. It's like a car cover, but it covers just the interior, so it's ideal for anytime you need to park in direct sunlight and don't want to "bake" the seats in the sun. It's held in place by strapping to the door handles on either side and tucking under the wiper in the front and the deck lid at the rear. It's simple, takes seconds to install and remove, and hardly takes up any precious storage space. You'll be protecting the leather and wood from the damaging effects of the sun, but also extending the life of the soft top and its elaborate system of seven solenoids, eight hydraulic cylinders and 10 proximity switches since you'll find yourself raising and lowering your top less often. 

Note poor fit. It's too short at the base of the windshield. (I'll get into that in another posting)

The second product I recommend is a windshield shade. Again, this is about shielding the interior from the sun.

My sunscreen of choice is the Covercraft UVS100.   

When the top is up, a sunscreen is the fastest way to block out harmful UV, which can do terrible damage to the leather and wood. When possible, I take the extra precaution of also parking in the shade.

Unlike most cars, this is the most the sunvisors will flip forward.

Now you'd think any old shade would do, but it's just our luck that the A124 has a design that makes most sunshades useless since the sunvisors do not extend all the way to the windshield. Push them forward and there's still a gap of several inches between the sunvisor and the windshield. This makes most sun shades flop down. They simply won't stay up because there's nothing to cling to. Consequently, you need a rigid oversized part with an accordian-type fold. Covercraft Model UVS100 is my model of choice.

Since there's a large gap between the sunvisors and the windshield, it's important to find
a stiff sunscreen like the UVS100 that can rest against the rear-view mirror.

The sunscreen I purchased was actually made for a BMW 6-series, so I trimmed it down by hand to fit. If you go this route, make sure to purchase one that is larger than your needs, of course.

Where to find these? Ebay, of course, where they are plentiful and even reasonably priced.