It all began with several Italians who recorded designs for wind-driven vehicles. First among them was Guido da Vigevano in 1335, who created a windmill type drive to gears and thus to wheels. Vaturio designed a similar vehicle which was also never built. Later, Leonardo da Vinci designed a clockwork-driven tricycle with tiller steering and a differential mechanism between the rear wheels.
In 1712, Thomas Newcomen built his first steam engine. It had a cylinder and a piston and was the first of this kind to use steam as a condensing agent to form a vacuum and with an overhead walking beam, pull on a rod to lift water. The steam was not under pressure, so Newcomen's lift would have only been limited by the length of the rod and the strength of the valve at the bottom. It was not until 1765 that James Watt developed the first pressurized steam engine, which proved to be much more efficient and compact than the Newcomen engine.
The first recorded vehicle to move under its own power was designed by Nicholas Joseph Cugnot and constructed by M. Brezin in 1769. A second unit was built in 1770 which weighed 8000 pounds and had a top speed of 2 miles per hour on the cobblestone streets of Paris.
Above, you will see the first model on its first drive around Paris, when it hit and knocked down a stone wall. This unsteady prototype also had a tendency to tip over forward unless its weight was counterbalanced with a canon in the rear, for which purpose it was built to carry out.
