What was the first transportation vehicle in the world?

Answer 1

Boats were the first transportation vehicles in the world, right back to when Neanderthal Man first learnt to paddle along on floating tree trunks! Sophisticated sailing and rowing vessels were being built thousands of years before Christ was born, both for transportation and for military use. As regards the first mechanically-propelled vehicle in the world, I don't think anyone will ever know. Carts and carriages propelled by clockwork, gears or pedal power were experimented with during the European Renaissance by the likes of Leonardo da vinci and others- during Elizabethan times, the first internal combustion engines were designed and tested, using gunpowder as their fuel. Somebody, somewhere during that time can probably claim to have had success with an early 'car', but their identity will forever be a mystery. The first KNOWN steam car was built in France just before the Revolution, by engineer Jean Cugnot. He designed a 3-wheeler gun tractor, driven by it's single front wheel with the boiler overhanging the front of the machine. It was inefficient, and following the Revolution of 1789, Napoleon forbade any further development of the concept for many years (incidentally, the tractor itself still survives, and can be seen in a Paris museum). However, it's quite possible that somebody built a steam car earlier than Cugnot, but that this was never pictured or documented. The first KNOWN successful railway engine was built in 1804 by Cornish engineer Joseph Trevithick. It made it's maiden journey at Penydarren in South Wales, pulling three wagonloads of coal. But as above, somebody somewhere may have beaten him to it and the event just wasn't known about or publicised. The first KNOWN petrol-engined car was built by Gottlieb Daimler in 1875, who converted an old cart chassis using a 12hp engine. However, the amount of experimentation with chemical engines that was going on throughout the Georgian and Victorian periods, make it almost inconceivable that this could have been the first EVER motor car.