What is this, who made it and why? One point at the end of it.
Although it has gears and wheels, it is not a car as normally a horse had to pull it: this device is a south-pointing chariot, designed in China probably more than 3000 years ago. The gears ensure that the figure is always pointing south and during a journey it is a sort of early compass.
So far, so good. This is indeed a model of a south-pointing chariot, an idea apparently invented in China several times between 2600BCE and 500. None of these survived the political upheavals of the time and the only detailed description, by a third-century writer called Fu Xuan doesn't work because either the author didn't know or wanted to keep the crucial parts secret. Subsequent historians disputed how it worked (many thought it might have been a magnetic compass) or doubted whether it ever really existed. A distinguished car designer – which is why this is in Autopuzzles – was asked whether a mechanical solution was possible using the technology of ancient China and he made this model by hand using only a penknife. Who was he?
(He incorporated in his design a mechanism found in most cars which was discovered by another famous engineer in a "eureka!" moment in the 1870s, but as it later turned out had been discovered independently many times earlier for different purposes, as clever inventions often are.)
I guess you mean George Lanchester.
yes, one point for you.
I remember a Meccano advertisement for their "Gears" set about 60 years ago that featured one of these as an example of what could be made.