Leonardo da Vinci designed an armored car with sloped armor and multiple cannons arranged around its body.
The vehicle appears in a late-15th-century drawing and was intended as a mobile fighting platform. Its conical, turtle-like shell was covered with armor plates, while guns were positioned around the circumference so they could fire in several directions. A crew inside would turn the vehicle using cranks connected to wheels.
The design is commonly called Leonardo’s tank, but “armored car” is a more precise description of the drawn machine. It was never built for Renaissance warfare, and the proposed gearing appears to contain a deliberate or accidental flaw that would prevent the vehicle from moving as drawn.
The concept demonstrates Leonardo’s interest in combining protection, mobility, and concentrated firepower. Modern tanks also combine those features, but they use engines, tracks, turrets, and armor systems developed many centuries later.