Born and raised in Detroit, Terry Smith has been a part of the Commercial Art Scene since 1953. Back then it was Automotive Illustration with art board, Windsor Newton Designers’ watercolors, paint brushes and airbrushes instead of Photography and Computer Graphics. Throughout the late sixties and early seventies, he was painting car illustrations for catalogs and national ads for the big three automotive companies.
In 1972 I met and got involved with Roger Penske and his Indy Car and Can Am racing programs. That venture had me designing color schemes for Penske sponsored race cars during the Mark Donahue and Peter Revson era. I guess my claim to fame at that time was designing the color schemes for the white L&M Porsche 917-10 and blue Sunoco 917-30 Can Am cars that Donahue and George Follmer raced in the early seventies.
In 1987 Terry teamed up with his son and started using a Macintosh computer when Desktop Publishing was in its infancy. He put aside his paint and paintbrushes and started the long journey into the world of Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Page Maker.
From 1987 until 2005 Terry Smith was designing brochures, logos, training manuals and line drawings. However, he had never thought of or even tried doing full-color car illustrations on the computer. It wasn’t until after he retired and his son brought his old computer to him in 2010, that Terry Smith thought about giving car illustration a try on the computer.
At Simply Petrol we are extremely happy to give you access to the #FineCarArt of Terry Smith.
