The Ford Quadricycle was the first vehicle developed by Henry Ford. Ford's first car was a simple frame with a gas-powered engine and four bicycle wheels mounted on it. The earliest cars were hand built, one by one, and very expensive. The peculiar machines were seen as toys for the rich.In the 1890s, the "horseless carriage" was a relatively new idea, with no one having a fixed, universal idea of what a car should look like or how it should work. Most of the first car builders were inventors, rather than businessmen, working with their imaginations and the parts they had on hand. Thus, the invention of the Quadricycle marks an important innovation as a proto-automobile that would lay the foundation for the future, with more practical designs to follow.