Nicholas-Joseph Cugnot became the first automobile engineer when his steam powered Fardier (wheeled cart) became the first self-propelled vehicle. He had to design and build the first steam engine, where steam, at a higher pressure than atmospheric pressure, drove a piston in a cylinder. He also invented a rotary valve activated by the piston to let the steam in and out of the machine’s two cylinders. The vehicle was demonstrated in France in 1770, pulling a five-ton artillery cannon.

The original Fardier de Cugnot has been in the collection of the Le Conservatoire de Arts et Metiers, Paris, France since 1801. This vehicle is on loan to the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum from the Deutsche Ban Museum in Nuremberg, Germany.