"Cosmic Motors" Concept Art by Daniel Simon

"QUANTUM SHOT" #542
Link - by Avi Abrams

If you wondered who is on the cutting edge of futuristic vehicle design, here is your answer

Daniel Simon, God bless his skills and imagination, is the coolest concept vehicle designer this side of Saturn's rings. The future itself can't help but shrivel and scuttle into a corner when this mighty artist enters the room. Yes! the Future itself feels intimidated, knowing that it will have to come up with something as radical and smooth as Daniel's visions in a few hundred years.

Get the book "Cosmic Motors" while it's still available, and find a quiet corner to drool over it

We admit, this feature is a bit overdue, but not for a lack of trying! It's just that Daniel Simon is a super-busy guy these days and is pretty hard to catch. Between designing the objects of future fetish and the newest luxury car models, he jet sets from Berlin to California three times on any given day. One hour he is having lunch with the top Star Wars artist, the next - he is surfing with a bunch of dudes (and supermodels) in the sunny Land of the Free.

In the meantime, his futuristic vehicles book "Cosmic Motors" continues to sell like a bunch of Ganymedian pancakes, or hot pies during Russian perestroika - and he is on fire with designs for the next book. So check out this catalog of galactic machinery, before it disappears from the stores (you can also order it from his site):

DETONATOR: a magnum-sized street-cruiser bike with a V8 engine

Daniel Simon says (in February 2008) "Yeah, I really like your site and think it's really cool, so, lets do it, tell me what you need! Best and until soon..." That soon turned out to be a full year, and finally we are able to exclusively feature his designs, and damn the torpedoes! (the pin-up style of some of his sexy drivers and machinery put our mind into a chrome-sleek-vintage-retro-pulp-WorldWarTwo-patriotic mode)

The Astrocon TAOOA light ray gunner

At some point we sent deeply philosophical, life-altering questions to Simon, to which he replied by sending us his book (which rocked the socks off our editorial team) and saying that he'd work on the answers while on the plane. However, the answers got siphoned off the airplane into a big blue yonder and are slowly drifting to the ground somewhere over China. In the meantime, here are some interesting facts from introduction to his book:

A pilot of the CAMARUDO pilot training vehicle and a cockpit detail view

"In 2001 he obtained his degree in vehicle design at the University of Applied Science in Pforzheim, Germany. After completion he went to Barcelona and designed concept cars for Bugatti and Lamborghini, followed by 5 years in the VW Group's Advanced Design... He has since returned to Berlin and founded the Daniel Simon Studio where he is designing virtual vehicles for his brand Cosmic Motors, published in his first book "Cosmic Motors". In parallel he continues to be a car designer, and offers his services to premium car makers."

Lots of things happen "long time ago, in a galaxy far far away". But "Cosmic Motors" happened in your nearby bookstore. So go there and get it - we only hope that this book will be followed by two sequels, three prequels and one TV animation series.

Design process of the Cosmic Motors DETONATOR bike.

Here you can see how much joy the curves of a properly-designed luxury car can bring to a blissful eye:

An "epic vehicle" is one way to describe the exploration Ice Train that routinely meets two dozen Cthulhu on any given trip (who line up for credit for a chance of ownership, on their unspeakable terms). It's big, it's gorgeous, and it knows it:

ICETRAIN is a gigantic ground patrol vehicle, over 180 feet long

Stewardesses of these sexy vehicles are pretty sexy, too. Almost as groovy as the original "Joy of Flying" examples of the 1960s, see here -

This is probably the most atmospheric and moody image that we intensely like (a "Hard Days Night" caption, perhaps?) -

All art courtesy and copyright Daniel Simon)

Detailed to the point of obsession, sleek and sensual enough to be considered evil - these machines haunt your dreams and DRIVE your desires, prompting you to look on your current car with a sort of deep sadness...

Order the book directly from the publisher here or from Amazon here. On the right is the cover of another great concept art book we recommend: