Welcome to the Factory Floor

Hello and welcome to the Tellurian Motors blog.

You have likely not heard of Tellurian Motors before, and that is because the company exists only within my own mind. However I would very much like to make it a reality, and this blog is one step toward that goal.

All my life, I've been an automotive designer. As a small child, when I first began to draw, I made up my own cars and trucks. Later on I tried to draw existing vehicles, but always found it more interesting to try my hand at a new design. There was a time when I would fill several pages a day, not because anyone asked me to, but just for the sheer enjoyment of it.

Art teachers and guidance counselors in public school didn't pick up on this and push me to apply to a college with a decent Industrial Design program, but I myself didn't realize it was something I could turn into a career back then. Had someone suggested it, it might have changed my life...

No sense dwelling on the past. I wouldn't change a thing. Here I am at the age of 40, no longer able to deny what I am -- a self-taught, amateur automotive designer. When I close my eyes I see wheels and tires and fenders, windshields and doors and roofs. I see cohesive forms, expressions of an alternative definition of Performance Art.

I love to drive, feel more at home behind the wheel than anywhere else. I understand how things work, but am not much of a mechanic. I'm an artist, and my preferred medium is automotive design. Period. That's what and who I am, and I realized recently that my main goal should be getting at least ONE of my designs built.

A while back I figured, since furniture was something I could actually build myself, I should shift my focus a bit and work on that. I came up with some original ideas and learned woodworking, and the results were pretty cool -- but this was me plying the wrong trade.


In this space I'll be describing some of my original concepts, and supplying images when they're available. I also have ideas for customizing old cars, trucks and vans (tweaking other people's designs) and I hope my descriptions of those will have you picturing them nearly as well as I do. And, there are at least two vehicles that have gone out of production, that I feel should be brought back to life... They are both timeless and nearly perfect. One is iconic, the other almost unknown...


What you won't see are wildly impractical dream cars with features almost no one would appreciate. An automotive designer has to be part artist and part engineer, and I've been at this for decades.


My next post will be about a recent newcomer to my mental stable of concepts. This one is unique in several ways, not least of which in that I consider it to be worthy of the attention of a couple of innovative corporations -- yes, I think if I can get their attention, this is something that might actually get built. My feelings about this one are so strong that it is indeed the main reason for the creation of this blog. My URL can be slipped into any message I send them, and then they can navigate here to see and read about the sensational vehicle that will help promote both companies even if only one example is ever constructed.

Wish me luck.



Phil Smith
April 20, 2007

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