I used to burn CDs to play music in my car. I was also one of the ten people in the world that bought a minidisc player. It was still too cumbersome. So once I learned about mini-itx motherboards, I decided to try to build a pc I could run in my car.

At the time(2003 I think) there weren’t a lot of options for cases, motherboards and power supplies so it was quite the project. Now there are quite a few mature products that make doing this yourself a relative breeze. One of the main suppliers of products is mp3car.com. They have a great forum there too with lots of detailed information. Mini-box.com has some amazing power supplies as well(Yes. I’m impressed by power supplies).

General Features:

• 40 gigs of storage
• GPS navigation
• Comprehensive music manager and playback
• Picture viewer
• Video playback (great while waiting in line at the carwash)

Geeky Details:

• 1 GHz VIA C3 processor and mainboard
• 1 gig of ram (in my car! haha)
• 40 gig Hitachi automotive grade 2.5″ harddrive
• USB GPS antenna
• USB Wifi
• Windows XP with XP embedded components for read only operation
• Interface from streetdeck.com

These are all the car pc projects I’ve done and helped with.

The first was my own Mazda Protege 5. Its still there in my car now.
Next, I did a friends Infiniti G35. Its by far the slickest in car entertainment system around.
Then I guided a buddy through his project on his Pontiac Vibe.
You can check out another sweet install by Rob in a Mazda 3 here.