Did Renaissance Man Leonardo da Vinci Invent the Car?

Pedretti teamed up with American robotics expert Mark Rosheim to create a set of blueprints which modern craftsmen could

The museum wanted the model to be crafted with tools and materials only available in the 15th century. (Photo: Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence)

understand. The modernized construction manual was then sent off to Paolo Galluzzi and his team of expert historians to be constructed. But why expert historians when it could have been possible to bringing the automotive know-how of a mass-production automaker? The museum wanted the model to be crafted with tools and materials only available in the 15th century.

Made of wood, the 600-year old design looks like a box-frame wagon with a mass of gears, metal plates and barrels mounted on three large wheels, which causes wonder of whether Leonardo's artistic side was absent on the day he penned the car. But like his helicopter and submarine, the design of the car wasn't mean to impress people with aesthetics, but rather its principle was to function over form, a demonstration of mechanical ingenuity.

The most complex thing about the car is how it's propelled. Instead of cylinders, valves and pistons, it uses barrels which hold coil springs and gears in order to store power to propel the vehicle. Much like a bow and arrow, and possibly even more like the tiny self-propelled toy cars that rocket themselves

Using a series of springs, the vehicle is powered by the cheapest fuel known to man: elbow grease. (Photo: Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence)

across the floor when pulled back and then let go, when Leonardo's vehicle was pushed back, energy to move forward was stored and then released. In other words, the vehicle is powered by the cheapest fuel known to man: elbow grease. Test runs of the car show that it had a range of around 36 yards (33 meters), a little less than inadequate by today's standards.

Springs mounted at the front end of the vehicle were used to control it, rather than to suspend it. And unlike a modern car, this vehicle steered itself, albeit around a preset course. If accepted as the world's first self-propelled vehicle, the car would also be the first computer ever built by a western civilization. Historians at the Museo Leonardiano di Vinci believe that the vehicle was built to impress court officials, perhaps a king from a foreign land. In that day and age, this precursor to the automobile and computer would have impressed anyone.