The Jesuit missionary
Ferdinand Verbiest who, around 1670, developed a small steam-powered trolley.
Nicholas Joseph Cugnot certainly deserves a mention. In 1770 he built his farrier à vapeur (steam dray), a self-propelled artillery carriage for the French army. This hefty three-wheeler was certainly a car in the loosest sense; more significantly, it was involved in the world's first recorded car crash, when it ran out of control at its heady top speed of 2mph and demolished a wall. The farrier survives to this day.
Original article
(here). New Advent article on Fr. Verbiest, S.J.
(here)
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