The telecommunications industry has made great strides toward solving the last-mile problem in delivering Internet services to consumers. However, considerable challenges remain in solving the last-inch problem: delivering services from vehicle-based computers to their drivers and passengers. Effectively solving this problem requires careful computing, communications, and cognitive design to contend with the automotive domain's significant safety issues and resource constraints. Such constraints dictate small displays for users who might be interacting with applications while driving at highway speeds. This article examines last-inch challenges through the lens of the nonfunctional requirements security, privacy, usability, and reliability (SPUR). It also presents a service-oriented middleware solution and describes its implementation in a demonstration vehicle. This article is part of a special issue on Intelligent Transportation.