I picked up a new material. Another member suggested polyurethane rather than vinyl, so I bought some. It is much softer than the vinyl, and actually behaves a lot like real leather when you fold it.
It's the bottom left. The top is my previous material, the bottom right is OEM GM vinyl.
Working on a gauge hood right now, hoping it turns out awesome
The only downside is tape doesn't like sticking to it, so I spend much more time using pins on all my corners to keep them aligned when I go to sew.
If it works out.. I want to do a french seam on the molded dash piece.. then I plan to sell a bunch of my parts already wrapped with the previous material:
- Padded gauge hood, molded dash trim, vent rings