The very first car  The Emperor's Toy

 

 The very first car might well have been the invention of a Flemish missionary named Ferdinand Veriest. Born in Flanders in 1623, Veriest was an accomplished astronomer who left Europe for China in 1658. He helped to modernize the now outmoded Chinese astronomy using recent European innovations, and he was asked by the emperor to become the director of the newly refurbished Beijing Ancient Observatory. What's more, he spoke at least five languages fluently, wrote thirty books, was a skilled diplomat and mapmaker, and tutored the long-lived Kantian Emperor in everything from mathematics to poetry. He was, even by the standards of the time, ridiculously accomplished.