The Mazda Roadster is a snug fitting car and when you sit in one it feels like the car is wrapped around you. The interior seems more like the cockpit of a jet than a car except there’s no joystick or missile launching switches (Which is too bad, the missiles would come in handy when dealing with buses and slow drivers). Although I can’t move around or recline, I still prefer the tightness of the roadster’s interior vs more roomy cars. The downside is that when you buy interior accessories you have to plan carefully where each tiny item will go. There isn’t a lot of real estate on the front panels to stick stuff. Since this is my 3rd roadster I knew exactly how I wanted my setup. This time I didn’t want to put anything on the dashboard or into the aircon vents. I spent part of the weekend hunting down stuff at different car accessory shops and finally got it just right. Although I still ended up buying a bunch of holders and magnets that didn’t quite work the way I wanted. In the first photo, I’ve numbered the gadgets which I describe below. The second photo is a close-up of 1 and 6.

1. CN-HDS940TD Panasonic F-Strada Navigation System. It has a digital TV tuner which broadcasts TV in extremely clear high definition. It is truly amazing. The tuner and diversity unit are under the passenger seat. The audio visual aspects of the navi are great but the navigation itself is a bit disappointing. As an example, on the big thoroughfares like Koshukaido and 246 it will always tell me to take the side roads rather than the bypasses. When there’s considerable traffic, this can waste a huge amount of time. I end up just ignoring it. The maps are very nice though.

2. HotInaZma Pocket. A must in every car!

3. Coin case. It’s a small cheap plastic thing you can fill with ¥100 and ¥500 coins. You can’t really see it in the photo because the case is black too. I used to keep the coins in the centre console cup holders but this time I wanted to use the cup holders for coffee from Starbucks.

4. iPod Nano. The car navi has an iPod connector which allows me to use the navi touch screen to control the iPod. Very convenient. I don’t need CDs anymore.

5. Rubber keitai or remote holder. It’s made of soft rubber and fits in the side bottle holder. That’s where my keitai goes.

6. Yupiteru Super Cat CR920si GPS Radar. I didn’t plan on getting a radar this time but yesterday as I was driving to the dealer the guy in front of me got caught at a speed trap. If he wasn’t in front of me I would have been nailed for sure. Generally, if you’re a safe driver you don’t need a radar, but they also serve other purposes. You can set it to display your speed, it alerts you to spots where there are lots of accidents or other info like service areas, police stations etc. I researched the current radar models and knew I wanted the CR920si but since I wanted to keep the dash and instrument panel clean I bought the Yupiteru Super Cat MR965i Mirror Type Radar instead. It’s basically a mirror with the radar LCD display in the corner and fits over your current rearview mirror. Very convenient and no clutter, so I thought. This turned out to be a big mistake. Even during idle the mirror shakes and vibrates like crazy and I got dizzy just looking at it. When in motion it was even worse and I couldn’t even concentrate on what was in front of me. I attempted a bunch of different things to try and stop the shaking but nothing worked. Finally, I called up Autobacs and said that I couldn’t use this thing and could I exchange it for the CR902si. They said OK and swapped it for me. It usually goes on the dashboard, but I didn’t want it there so stuck it beside the navigation. When moving, the display has this radar scope like you see in submarine movies. Awesome!!

Close-ups of 7-10

7. Clock. This is a cheap LCD clock which is attached to the front windshield with a suction cup. Without the stock stereo the roadster doesn’t have a clock and the one on the navigation is too small to see. This little guy works out just fine.

8. Microphone. In the 2007 model of the Panasonic navigation, you can hook up your bluetooth phone to the navi and use the mic for hands free talking on your keitai. Unfortunately, the model I have (2006) the microphone is only used for voice command and control. It doesn’t work that well. For example, I said 現在地 “genzaichi” which means “current location” and the navi set a route to 築地 “Tsukiji” instead.

9. Parking ticket clip. Previously I used an elastic band. I thought I’d splurge and get a proper one for ¥300;

10. This is one of those ball compasses that’s stuck to the windshield via suction cup. It’s completely useless and I’ll probably throw it away. There’s some kind of magnetic wave inside the car which screws up the compass. Maybe the signal for the Advance Keyless Entry? Anyways, the compass is 270 degrees off. The little black cube on the left is the speaker/antenna for the ETC (Electronic Toll Collection System) The ETC itself is in the glove compartment.

I also got a holder that sticks onto the A-Pillar so I can put my GR Digital in. But I’m still debating whether I want to install it or not.