Davinci Invented the Car.

[BrooklynKnight]

Yep. Apparently he invented the first self propelled automobile.
Here is a link to the italian museum site that has scans of his notebooks available.

The notes were used to actually construct the vehicle which uses springs and looks almost like a wagon.

http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/automobile/

 

[Zappo]

Yup. I recall going to see another model in Vinci while I was in high school. The model I watched was nonfunctioning, presumably because Leonardo's designs were actually wrong. Later, it turned out that the people who built that model actually got some key components wrong (it did look the same though) and the car could in fact work. This must be the project to build a functional model.

Of course, it is basically spring-powered. It wouldn't move for more than, I dunno, a hundred meters or so. Still, pretty nifty for something designed a half millennium ago. If only the man could concentrate on the same project for any length of time, he may have actually invented something really useful sooner or later.

 

[Zappo]

Here are the pictures of the real thing (click on those longish and badly designed thumbnails):

http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/automobile/html/nuovo_02.htm