We found some navy wool in a fabric store a couple of years ago and my wife made me an inverness cape. I'm not following the part about how it's not practical in the modern world. I have no more problem with it in the car than I do with the kilt. Actually it keeps the kilt from spreading out. The only thing I regret is that there are so few opportunities to actually us it here in Texas. I'm not familiar with older designs for inverness capes. The cape portion is adequate for covering my arm and the pipe bag. I'm not sure how well a smaller cape would work.