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Casetronic for one makes Dual mini-ITX 1U cases, with a 15" depth. 2 dual cpu mobo's per U is how they got to 168 processors per rack.

I have good news for you the "day" you are waiting for... has passed already.
Buy one of this and one of this
then add your preferite socket 478 processor, some RAM, HD, DVD and you are done...
You could use it as a stove if needed (you never know, you may get hungry playing).

And here's the link. Yes, it fits in your dashboard too.

$1200 is pretty steep, for just an underpowered small PC - it's probably an overpriced "industrial" board that's been repackaged, and I'm not sure the 266MHz box will play DVD's and run those funky xmms plugins quite as well as a GHz VIA board. When counting the cost of you're in-car PC, don't forget the touchscreen and tiny-LCD display either - typing's a bitch when you're driving.

How about the LexSystem? Or perhaps the Travla? I think both fit the bill nicely. The LexSystem is a bit tighter than the Travla, but for some reason I find the Travla very HURRR

Timothy, you may be interested in the PW-60, available at http://mini-box.com/. The Oggbox guy has used it directly in his car without an inverter and hasn't had too many troubles. From what i understand he's not the only one who's got it in his car. One cool thing about Mini-ITX is if you build it into an appropriately sized enclosure it will fit into a stock car stereo space, so you don't even need to have a cradle or put it in your trunk or anything. Have a look at the C-134 case or wait a few weeks and go back to mini-box.com - they're making a tiny case with an LCD and button controls on the front panel.

Mini-ITX is a revolution for me. It's flexible enough to be used as a sub-laptop-sized mini-PC... Silent, smooth, and pretty snappy for office apps and multimedia. Or put it in a slightly larger box with a GeForce4 and maybe a soundcard or TV tuner card for high-quality gaming and multimedia. Remember it's much more important for gaming that you have a decent graphics card than a fast CPU. Mini-ITX rocks :-)

Casetronic makes the 2677R (with PCI riser.) I don't think it comes in blue, only beige or black. But you can paint it any color you want. Its USB ports are in the back, since that's where they are on the mini-ITX board. If you want 'em on the front you'll need a different mobo and case. Find the mini-ITX and the 2677R at Leadman Electronics.

- dvd_tude

Casetronic makes the 2677R (with PCI riser.) I don't think it comes in blue, only beige or black. But you can paint it any color you want. Its USB ports are in the back, since that's where they are on the mini-ITX board. If you want 'em on the front you'll need a different mobo and case. Find the mini-ITX and the 2677R at Leadman Electronics.

- dvd_tude

Your requirements aren't so difficult: they're pretty typical "barebones" needs.

Until recently the no-fan issue posed the biggest challenge. This is why there's so much interest in the VIA mini-ITX boards - one of them, the Eden 553MHz has no fan, while the faster C3 800 MHz does (though with a larger heatsink it probably could get away with passive cooling only.) There's a 1GHz C3 version coming later this year.

These mini-ITX boards retain the essential I/O connections for a desktop system. Either one should do the job for you as well as a larger PC.

One of the other cases shown in the article, the Casetronic ("Cubid") 2677R, is in my opinion easier to work with than the Lex they reviewed. It differs from the Lex mainly in that the PCI is 'flipped over' which improves cooling for both the PCI card and the motherboard. Also there's enough room for a less-expensive and better-performing 3.5" hard disk.

The dual-head issue would need a second VGA card (an option to consider would be to use the TV out.) Software-wise, implementing dual-head is the same as any other platform: it's whatever your OS supports. Your secondary challenge is to choose a VGA card that has no fan, which rules out the high-end models. However, if you're willing to do a bit of thermal engineering, the Casetronic case could accomdate a larger heatsink on the VGA card, perhaps making passive cooling an option for a card that otherwise needs a fan.

Wheel mouse support is the same as any other PC: USB or PS/2. By the same token, Windows and/or Citrix should be no problem (there's Ethernet on-board.)

- dvd_tude