History After the steam engine was invented in the early 17th century, various attempts were made to apply this source of power to self-propelled road vehicles. Early efforts were unsuccessful, except for those that produced interesting toys such as the machine developed about 1680 by the English scientist Sir Isaac Newton, wich was propelled by the back pressure of a jet of steam directed to the rear. The first successful self-propelled road vehicle was a steam automobile invented in 1770 by the French engineer Nicolas Joseph Cugnot. It was designed to transport artillery, and it ran on three wheels. The British inventor William Symington in 1786 built a wo