"It is the world's first self-propelled vehicle. It was designed to operate as a robot and could travel for about 40 metres... Looking at it carefully, it does resemble the Spirit space vehicle used on Mars."
http://www.imss.fi.it/news/eautomobile.html
More:
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1094767.htm
If you can read Italian, here's more plus a PDF of the show:
http://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/automobile/
Historic-Automotively,
Chris
