On 3/10/2003 I purchased a Nissan 350Z (Touring) w/ DVD Navigation.  The Navigation unit comes with a decent 7" LCD screen...and no it will not play DVD movies.  Everyone that has ridden in the car with me has told me two things: 1) "Slow down" 2) "Dude, you should find a way to display more than the navigation data on the screen".  At first I considered installing either an Xbox or a 1U rack server (the glove compartment is 19" wide...perfect for a rack), but after a bit of research I settled on a "modest" ITX form factor PC running Windows XP: The Casetronic Travla C-134.

These pages are dedicated to my efforts of installing this PC in to my Z.

The first question people ask me about this is "Why?".  That is an excellent question with no good answer.  I admit that having a PC in the car is a bit impractical, as well as dangerous.  But, to be honest, the 350Z is not what I would call a "practical" car.  And second of all I have no intentions of using the PC while I am driving (suuure).  I intend to use the PC for the following practical purposes:

• MP3 storage and playback
• Download, storage, and distribution of all of my digital photos
  The PC has a DVD/CDRW that I can use to burn photos and give copies to family and friends
• Display of the 2000+ page Nissan 350Z Technical Service Manual PDF file
• Wireless transfer of files to and from my home (again using the CDRW for hard copies)
• Wireless internet access
  I can check my email and corporate calendar while on the road.

Other not so practical and/or insane purposes for the future include:

• Built in dyno testing
• Onboard WebCams, with possibly live streaming
• Custom GPS software
• Cops.Net
  Some of my friends and I were thinking of a system that manually or automatically marks police sightings and radar hits and uploads the info to a public database.
  A live community could then be created that informs you of the presence of local police.

With a PC the sky is the limit (didn't we learn this from the .com boom of the 90's? :)). Sure, if the passenger is watching a movie then I might glance at it from time to time. Sure, if I have a TV tuner and the news is on I might glance at the latest stories. And yes, I am aware that having a DVD player in a vehicle such that it distracts the driver is potentially illegal (WA RCW 46.37.480).