It's more than a stumper, it's almost impossible!

Baloney. I've done it a couple times now. Advice:

1. Make sure you have a datasheet for the LCD WITH PINOUT before puchasing it. Without that pinout, it is useless.

2. Yes, you need an LCD controller, any ol' standard VGA card will not work. And I'm not talking DVI here either.

3. You'll need to get the correct backlight inverter (specs should be in datasheet.)

4. You'll need to make a data cable. On the LCD end, there will usually be some kind of difficult-to-find connector. Many Sharp screens use a 31-pin Hirose connector. You'll want to find one of these as soldering to those tiny pins is difficult and prone to broken connections. Then you just connect the pins on your LCD to the matching ones on your controller.

That's pretty much it....from there, just plug it all up, supply the correct power (you'll probably need a DC-DC converter for use in-vehicle) and viola! LCD goodness.

Also, when shopping for a LCD on ebay or something like that, be sure that it is a TFT screen and not DSTN or you will be extremely disappointed with the refresh rates. Also make check that it supports enough colors for your application. For example, a 12-bit LCD will not work well for watching DVDs as it only supports 4096 colors, but it works great for GPS.

My official recommendation is to buy one of the kits from earthlcd linked above. It's a lot of work and some of the parts are very difficult to source as a hobbyist, unless you can get samples. The only reason in my opinion to do it yourself is if you have a device with a built-in LCD controller and no other options.