Leonardo da Vinci designed an armored car with a conical protective body and internal hand-operated gears.
The design appears in Leonardo’s military engineering studies from the late 15th century. Its sloping cover was intended to deflect incoming projectiles, while a group of operators would turn cranks connected to the wheels. The vehicle also included positions for weapons around its upper structure.
The machine is frequently described as an early tank, although that modern label can hide important differences. Leonardo’s vehicle was never built in his lifetime, and the surviving drawing is a design study rather than evidence of a completed battlefield machine. Some reconstructions have shown that the gear arrangement would need modification to work as intended.
A popular story says Leonardo deliberately inserted a flaw to prevent others from using the design. That claim is not established by contemporary evidence; the mismatch in the gears may instead reflect an error or an incomplete drawing.