Your ideas on my early carrera/boxster roadtrip accessory bar

[JeTexas]

As we all know, the early 996 and 986 are great sports cars, but lack a few amentities that it's nice to have, especially on long trips. There's no cup holders. On top of that, the cigarette lighters - even the updated replacement versions - don't work too well as power adapters. I have a couple different plugs that instantly pop back out of mine.

Anyway, I was at the hardware store picking up some stuff for the house last weekend, and I realized that their project aluminum was the perfect size to fit in the gap between the upper and lower portions of my 99 996 cab's center console. The cost for a 4' piece of this aluminum was $7.50.

I went by O'Reilly's and picked up an accessory power plug for $1.99.

I already had the Belkin Tunebase for my iPhone that I used in another car, but the stock cigarette lighter in the Porsche couldn't hold it up.

I popped the dash panel with the cigarette lighter off and put blade tips on a couple wires that I slid into the back of the stock lighter plug. I then ran the wires to a quick release clip and then to the new accessory plug.

I've now got the Belkin Tunebase secure in my new accessory plug on one end of the aluminum strip. At the other end I'm either going to attach my power inverter or a cup holder, or maybe both if I can figure out something ingenius enough.

Right now I just have a couple strips of tape holding the aluminum in place to keep it from sliding down into the dash. I'm considering using velcro to hold it in place, but I'm hesitant because when I remove it, you could see the velcro in the crack. I'm thinking a better idea would be to find some sort of rubber front I can put on the edge of the aluminum, so that it won't slide all the way into the crack. However, I'd love to hear any innovative ideas you guys might have.

The whole point of this was to be able to add some convenient accessories in a totally non-destructive way, so that I can quickly remove it and there's no trace of anything done to the car.

Thanks for any input on how I can improve the idea, and I hope it might be helpful to some of you.

[carsareart]

cool idea! Good Job.

[pjalexandre]

Cool idea. You can never have enough of em. The reason that some cig lighter adapters "pop" out of the porsche is because our cars have the slightly bigger Euro sized socket vs the smaller US size.

From wiki...

12 volt cigar lighter receptacle and plug, size A

* Receptacle inside diameter: 20.93 mm to 21.01 mm (median 20.97 mm)

* Plug body diameter: 20.73 mm to 20.88 mm (median 20.805 mm)

* Most often used in American automobiles.

12 volt cigar lighter receptacle and plug, size B

* Receptacle inside diameter: 21.41 mm to 21.51 mm (median 21.455 mm)

* Plug body diameter: 21.13 mm to 21.33 mm (median 21.18 mm)

* Most often used in European automobiles, and sometimes as a second socket in American automobiles expressly for DC power connections.

As we all know, the early 996 and 986 are great sports cars, but lack a few amentities that it's nice to have, especially on long trips. There's no cup holders. On top of that, the cigarette lighters - even the updated replacement versions - don't work too well as power adapters. I have a couple different plugs that instantly pop back out of mine.

Anyway, I was at the hardware store picking up some stuff for the house last weekend, and I realized that their project aluminum was the perfect size to fit in the gap between the upper and lower portions of my 99 996 cab's center console. The cost for a 4' piece of this aluminum was $7.50.

I went by O'Reilly's and picked up an accessory power plug for $1.99.

I already had the Belkin Tunebase for my iPhone that I used in another car, but the stock cigarette lighter in the Porsche couldn't hold it up.

I popped the dash panel with the cigarette lighter off and put blade tips on a couple wires that I slid into the back of the stock lighter plug. I then ran the wires to a quick release clip and then to the new accessory plug.

I've now got the Belkin Tunebase secure in my new accessory plug on one end of the aluminum strip. At the other end I'm either going to attach my power inverter or a cup holder, or maybe both if I can figure out something ingenius enough.

Right now I just have a couple strips of tape holding the aluminum in place to keep it from sliding down into the dash. I'm considering using velcro to hold it in place, but I'm hesitant because when I remove it, you could see the velcro in the crack. I'm thinking a better idea would be to find some sort of rubber front I can put on the edge of the aluminum, so that it won't slide all the way into the crack. However, I'd love to hear any innovative ideas you guys might have.

The whole point of this was to be able to add some convenient accessories in a totally non-destructive way, so that I can quickly remove it and there's no trace of anything done to the car.

Thanks for any input on how I can improve the idea, and I hope it might be helpful to some of you.