Leonardo da Vinci designed an armored car with a conical turret and sloping armor.
The fighting vehicle appears in Leonardo’s notebooks from the late fifteenth century. Its broad, covered body was intended to protect occupants, while guns placed around the platform could fire in several directions. The sloped outer surface helped deflect attacks and also gave the vehicle its distinctive appearance.
The machine was meant to move using cranks operated by people inside. One famous modern observation is that some drawings appear to show the gears arranged so the vehicle would move in the wrong direction. Historians debate whether this was an error, a deliberate obstruction, or an incomplete design rather than a finished engineering plan.
Although it is often called a tank, Leonardo’s vehicle was not a modern tracked tank. It had wheels, no internal-combustion engine, and no evidence of battlefield construction in his lifetime. “Armored car” is the standard short description for the concept.