Will space humans float their hovercars down Interstate 90 to have space coffee next to Mount St. Helens in the year 4000? It's a little early to tell but you can do something very similar today. Go for a long drive in Italy!

Mercedes-Benz likes to pretend they invented the automobile, but that's a well-engineered, luxurious load of crap. The roots of the automobile go much further back, and researching how far back got me thinking. If we ignore, gleefully, what actually happened, when could the first car have been created, at least…