See title. It's kind of a stupid question but I'm having a tough time finding info about it. The tear is only a few centimeters wide, but it's about 7-10 inches long. Are there patches for this sort of thing? Is there some kind of other fix? Even a jury-rigged fix (as long as it isn't obvious/really ugly/duct tape over the hole) would be acceptable, really, though I'd prefer something more conventional.

Where can I buy something to fix it with and how much would it cost, roughly? Any information would be very much appreciated. Perhaps more importantly, is there any way I can prevent this from happening again?

Basically, I'm looking for anything short of paying a few thousand dollars to have the whole thing replaced, because it's really not that bad of a tear. I took some high-res pictures of the rip that you can see below so you can get an idea of just how bad (or not bad) the thing is. If it helps to know, the car is a 1977 Mercedes-Benz 450SL convertable.

http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/2528/rip14uo.jpg
http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/442/rip24ne.jpg
http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/5067/rip38bx.jpg
http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/4371/rip40zn.jpg
http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/1719/rip56ri.jpg
http://img104.imageshack.us/img104/2981/rip61ms.jpg