Presented by Museo Militare della Cecchignola, Roma

(France 1769)

A 7:10 scale reproduction of the world’s first self-propelled vehicle, a steam-powered, tricycle artillery tractor designed in Paris’s Military Arsenal by Nicolas Joseph Cugnot of Lorraine. Its two-cylinder engine was supplied with steam by a boiler and drove the front wheel, which also took care of the steering. The original, better known as the fardier (waggon for carrying heavy loads), can be seen in the Conservatoire National des arts et Métiers, Paris.