I have an automotive application that will control a custom car. Everything from ride height to lighting to infotainment.
Budget is no problem, but I don’t want a custom board.
I just want it fast, easy and all the options.
Car will be stored, but not driven in Below zero F weather.
Power consumption is not an issue ( yay! )
Oh I also want it to be supported for as long as possible.
Also any advice on powering it from the vehicle? It’s a harsh environment electrically hear.
Thanks
Keith
GHI’s most powerful board currently is the G400. However, this board is still in beta. So, if you are experienced and want to help GHI turn this into a stable product then there’s a great deal on their G400 beta kit right now.
http://www.ghielectronics.com/catalog/product/436
However, this very well could be too much power for what you need. It would help if you had a list of the things you specifically want to do. Will you be using a display?
Well I am a professional firmware developer, if that accounts for anything 
I write in C, but grew up in C++ and have done a number of C# projects
I have the ride height controller running on a Panda II this is going in another application so I want to go all out on this one…
I’m not sure I will have the free time to be much of a beta tester though, I tend to work on the car more than code in my free time
Also if I buy the beta and there are issues, am I stuck, or is there an upgrade path?
Features …well this is a personal project so it’s not (well) documented, but basically;
I want a touch screen
Camera interface
Networking ( WIFI preferred )
Cell connection
ISM band radio of some sort 802.15.4 is my pref, like an XBee
lots of analog inputs
lots of Digital outputs
a few PWM outputs
play music off the SD card
serve active web pages over WIFI
is that enough ?!
With that list, I’d definitely stick with premium boards. The Cobra-II is probably your best bet at this time and if you later need more power, it should be a seemless migration to a G400 based mainboard.
I like it.
Even has real wifi
Any estimate of it’s life expectancy?
any advice on how to power this from a vehicle?
That’s a GHI question, but considering it’s a premium G120 based board I suspect you have several years.
The barrel jack will accept up to 30V input. So, I would find a place to tap into the 12V power from the car battery.
Ha! I spend enough time here it sometimes feels like I should be getting paid 
The GHI employees will always have a blue GHI logo next to their name such as Gus on this page:
What luck! Non-beta firmware was just this minute announced for the G400. I wouldn’t take that to mean there aren’t still problems since it’s barely been used yet. But, it might not be as painful as you might have been thinking earlier. Also, no mention yet of Gadgeteer support if that’s important to you.
http://www.ghielectronics.com/community/forum/topic?id=12202&page=1#msg124195
Depending on your time line you may want to wait for the G400 for the infotainment part and combine this with 1 or more G120HDR Modules or Cobra’s communicating over CAN. You going to do the motor management to or just the secondary systems?
I’m not in a huge hurry, I might wait, but the cobra does look like plenty of power and IO
Not running the engine, I wouldn’t try that with C# !
Why not i’m running (some critical parts off) a public electrical bus on netmf and C# 
With the G120 on a custom board this is.
well besides already having a working engine / transmission controller and limited amount of time…
I’d be concerned with determinism since engines pretty much require things to happen right on time every time!