We’re much too mature to link this post with today’s other one, however tempting it is. If your mind has connected the two though, that’s on you…

Now we’ve got that out of the way, on to the vehicle. This is an 1870 Batho 25-ton road roller, a prototype that would become the world’s first mass-produced road roller (‘mass’ being a relative term we suspect).

It’s also both the oldest (we think) and most unusual vehicle that this site has ever featured, and it comes from previous bloggee and weird-vehicle extraordinaire Nikolaus Löwe, who has based this exquisite recreation of the 1870 Batho on a scale model of the original vehicle.

Working steering and a considerable quantity of old-timey cogs and gears are present and correct (they’re for-real cogs and gears too, not any of that steampunk nonsense), and there’s lots more to see of Nikolaus’s remarkable model of a remarkable machine at his Batho 25-ton Road Roller album on Flickr – click the link above to see more of his impressive steamer.