Nicolas Joseph Cugnot was born in Void-Vacon, Lorraine, Meuse in north-east France in February 1725. He trained as a military engineer and was a captain in the French army and had fought in the Seven Years War (1756-63) in the Austrian Army. Along his travels he saw the need to move heavy artillery in a better way than a heavy horse and wagon of the time which struggled to cope in most cases. He was commissioned by the French War Ministry under the Duke of Choiseul and was encouraged by General Gribeauval to create a steam-powered wagon for heavy armaments transportation.
Having studied the work of French physicist Denis Papin from a century earlier and that of Thomas Newcomen and Boulton/Watt he came up with a three-quarter size model of in 1769 which had excellent positive results. The Duke of Choiseul then sanctioned the building of the
