The Nuremberg carriage of 1649. Since it could carry several passengers, the two men inside must have found propelling it hard work – especially when they had to pump water and blow the trumpets while going uphill, all at the same time.

A celebrated mechanician called Johan Hautsch of Nuremburg in Germany built an ornate carriage in 1649. It is thought to have been worked by two men concealed inside, who turned the rear axle by means of handles. It is reported to have gone up and down hills, and steered around corners, and stopped and started as desired, attaining a speed of 2,000 paces an hour (which isn't very fast). It could carry several passengers, and a dragon in front could spout out a stream of water to clear a way through a crowd. This might have been superfluous, because the dragon could turn its eyes to and fro with great rapidity. If this (and the water) didn't frighten people out of the way, the angels, mounted one on each side of the carriage, sounded their trumpets. Hautsch sold his first carriage to the Crown Prince of Sweden and later built another for the King of Denmark. The Scandinavian crowds assembling to cheer the carriages as they crawled by must have been at least as hardy and patient as the men inside struggling to propel the great mass, heavy with water for the dragon, as they applied their lips to the angels' trumpets.

Snowden's carriage was propelled by horses walking round and round inside. It would need a road of some width to accommodate it.

W F Snowden's carriage of 1824 has an upper storey for the passengers, and a lower storey for the driving force – the horses, which walk round and round on a circular track. The horses are yoked to radial arms on a central vertical shaft which turns the axles of the road wheels via toothed gearing. It could have been suitable only for the broadest of thoroughfares.

Bramley & Parker's 'locomotive carriage applicable to common roads' (British patent no 6027 of 1830) used treadles and freewheels. There was one model for the solo locomotist, and another for up to three (two shown).

Henry Ford with his wife and grandson (Henry Ford II). Henry Ford sits at the tiller of the first car he made, in 1896 when he was 33.

In America, Henry Ford (1863-1947) became interested in road vehicles in about 1890 and produced his first car in 1896. Sometimes referred to as a quadricycle, Ford's original car had a twin-cylinder four-stroke water-cooled engine, belt transmission, tiller steering, wire wheels with solid rubber tyres and is said to have attained a speed of 30 mph (48 kph). Ford's second car, built a few years later, was even more successful. He founded the Ford Motor Company in 1903 and produced one of the most successful models ever; 15,000,000 Ford Model T cars were built between 1908 and 1927. Ford's contribution to the industry was to bring the motorcar within almost everyone's reach by using mass-production techniques pioneered by the arms manufacturer Samuel Colt (1814-1862) to provide interchangeability. This avoided expensive and time-consuming selection and fitting of parts, which not only kept the price of the vehicle down, but made repairs and servicing easier and cheaper too.

With only one model (the Model T) to build – in 'any colour you like, as long as it's black' – the Ford plant at Detroit, Michigan produced over a milion cars in 1914, at an unheard-of price of $600.