Ever fancied yourself as Michael Knight, darting about in your black sports car with all its electronic wizardry? Us neither, but that hasn’t stopped clever Nokia types from coming up with a very cool use for the N810.

Dubbed Carman, the kit uses a standard Bluetooth ‘plug’ to link the Nokia Internet Tablet to your car’s ECU. From there it can suck all sorts of interesting snippets such as speed, rev counter, engine temperature and the like. Information is saved to the N810 in real time and you can play it back later.

Even cooler though is the ability to do a Maps Mashup and plot your route directly onto a map (very KITT). Even cooler still is the ability to see your mates on the same map (assuming they have the same device and setup). The N810 uses Instant Messaging to send the data between the two devices.

We had a little demo just now and were suitably impressed. We won’t be tapping into the Focus’s engine bay though. Nothing much to see there.