Leonardo da Vinci designed an armored car or tank in about 1487. His design was covered by wood, had 4 wheels, which were powered by hand cranks from within the vehicle. There were firing ports so that the occupants could fire in a 360 degree range, without moving the vehicle. Like most of his other ideas, this was never published, and a prototype was never built. Perhaps he realized that his vehicle would be far too heavy to be powered by hand operated cranks. 
However, in 1512 a Spanish army in Italy used 200 battle cars against a French army, but the armored cars were not sufficient to win the battle for the Spanish.
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