Leonardo da Vinci’s design commonly described as an early armored vehicle was the armored car.
Leonardo sketched the fighting vehicle in the 1480s while working for Ludovico Sforza in Milan. Its conical, turtle-like shell was intended to protect soldiers inside from weapons fired from outside. The vehicle also included multiple light cannons arranged around its sloping armor.
The design was meant to move by the power of men turning cranks connected to wheels. A famous drawing appears to show a mechanical flaw: the gears would work against one another if built exactly as illustrated. Historians debate whether that was an error, a deliberate concealment, or simply an unfinished design.
Calling it a tank is convenient but technically modern. Leonardo did not create a motorized armored tank in the twentieth-century sense, and there is no evidence that his vehicle was constructed for battle. Its importance lies in combining armor, mobility, and distributed firepower in one Renaissance proposal.