Need the "audio" type peoples advice here.

I have a mazda 6 now, if any of you have seen inside the 6 there is a compartment above the radio on top of the dash which opens up. What I want to do is fit a VDO Dayton Sat Nav Screen in there or a Navman screen but I want the compartment lid to be functional and close to hide away the unit when I dont want it seen.

Now I was thinking of a couple of ways.
1: Some how suspend the sat nav screen to the underside of the compartment lid so when i open the lid, the screen will fall down into position.
2: Get like a small air strut and have the screen "hinged" at the bottom of itself to the inside of the compartment and when I open the lid it will spring up into position, then when i dont want it, just push the screen down and close the lid (labour intensive i think)
3: Hinge the screen like point 2 but drive the screen up and down with lets say a heavy duty servo out of a radio control piece of equipment and have it activated to go up when the lid is opened and when the lid just starts to close, have it go down (labour intensive and need to be an electronics nerd for the switch)

Does anybody else have a better/easier idea as I think my ways are very tricky, hard ways of going about it.

Thanks for any advice

u could try putting the top of the screen in a track like device so when u close the lid it will automatically roll the top of the screen along the track and fold away... u get wot im sayin?

Yep! Good idea, anymore anyone?!?!

I second the track idea. Is the box similar to the impreza my99 box above the air vents?

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Mazda CX-7
Mitsubishi Evo X MR

Yep I am willing to say close to identical

let me search a bit, I wanted to do similar in my wrx and a guy a nasioc did a cool project on his rx with tracks from memory. Let me see if I can find it...

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Mazda CX-7
Mitsubishi Evo X MR

Sorry dan, it was the jdm housing for the GPS for some reson i thought it was cutom made. But if you can do something similar it would look cool.

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Mazda CX-7
Mitsubishi Evo X MR

Damn! thats exactly what I want. hrm.... I know that the Euro models get the sat nav put in there, I wonder if I can just buy an enclosure??

Yeah what I did was grab the parts catalogue from japan, in your case europe and then get a contact at mazda over there. The reason I changed my mind is the screen is 5.4" and too small for what I wanted. I'm sure you can get the parts then just put in a shroud around the navman.

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Mazda CX-7
Mitsubishi Evo X MR

yer thats the idea.. i was thinking the exact same thing, but the new impreza doesnt come with the storage compartment above the vents... so i just have to go INDASH plus maybe in glovebox?