Building an iPad car mount for the Alfa Romeo 147

I recently bought a windshield car mount for my iPad to use it as a GPS navigation device on my car.

Unfortunately, the windshield position for an iPad is very unsafe, at least on my car model: Alfa Romeo 147^[a]. The large iPad screen size, in fact, creates a big blind spot blocking a large range of the right side driver’s view. As you can see in the pictures below, a big section of the windshield is hidden by both the iPad screen and the rear-view mirror.

I decided therefore to search for an alternative solution; a way to put the iPad in a lower position where it wont block the driver’s view.

Searching on the web I found many solutions, both DIY projects and commercial gadgets. Some involved the use of magnets, or the use of the CD player slot to attach a tablet holder, or leveraging a particular shape of a car dashboard, but the most interesting solutions were the ones using velcro^[b].

Here’s a picture of my car dashboard:

As you can see, the rounded shape of my car dashboard makes it difficult to attach something to it. The only place that could be used is the little drawer below the car radio. My idea is to modify the windshield car mount by replacing the suction cup with a little wooden board that could be inserted inside the drawer and attached using some velcro strips. In this way the device can be easily inserted and removed without the need to use screws, make holes or modify in any way the dashboard. Moreover, when you remove the device the velcro strip are barely noticeable and you can still use the drawer normally thus providing a very non-invasive solution.

First of all I disassembled the windshield car mount. As you can see in the pictures below, i took the base part of the car mount and removed its head.