horseless carriage

noun2

1. •
   (historical) An early automobile, of the types designed before World War I.

   • Fanny Minafer had begun to talk to Lucy. "Your father wanted to prove that his horseless carriage would run, even in the snow," she said. "It really does, too." — 1918
2. •
   (figurative) Something new and unprecedented interpreted in older and familiar terms.

   • The basic operational mechanisms and business practices were so new and strange, so utterly sui generis, that all we could see was a gaggle of “innovative” horseless carriages. — 2018