Welcome to the world of
Rotary powered vehicles
Under construction, last modification
made 21/09/97.
The best known rotary powered vehicle in the world is probably the
Mazda RX-7. And a lot of homepages is made about this car.
But there are many other models from Mazda and there are also many
other manufacturers that have made rotary powered vehicles over the
years. And that is what this site will be about.
The History
tells us that the very first rotary in modern times
actually was a compressor and not an engine, and that it was
supposed to be used on a NSU motorcycle. This was in the early 50:s.
The name of the inventor was Felix Wankel who
at that time worked for NSU Motorcycles. The compressor project
where never realized and some years later it was converted to an
engine.
NSU
had so far only been producing small and non-sporty cars but
now they choosed to use this new engine to produce a faster and
more sporty model, the NSU Spider.
When looking back in the history I think everyone would like to
forget all about this car because it was everything but reliable.
NSU even offered the customer to sell the car back to the factory.
It doesnīt take a collage degree to understand that the financial
side of this project wasnīt bad, it was worse than bad. Although
did NSU continue to develop the engine from one-rotor to two-rotors.
They also developed a whole new car for the engine.
The Ro80
from NSU was launched in 1967.
It was a stunning car for its time. It had semi-automatic
gearbox, disc brakes on all four wheels with dual circuits
(center-positioned in front), individual suspension to all four
wheels, extreme long wheel base which gave the
car large internal space and it had also a very good rust-protection.
(At least they thought they had. But after have replaced something like
half of the floor pans on my car, I disagree.) The development of the
Ro80 have drained the company of money and to get financial stability
back as soon as possible they launched the car before it was finished.
The result was almost as bad as with the Spider. Owners of Ro80:s could
have several engines replaced during warranty. Actually when two Ro80's met on
the road, the driver saluted each other by showing a number of fingers
to the other driver, the number of fingers represented the numbers of
engines the car have had. (I hope no one had six engines replaced because
then driving must have been dangerous!)
V.A.G. (Volkswagen-Audi-Gruppe)
finally bought NSU in the late 60:s. The development of the Ro80 was
then almost stopped but the production continued until 1977, still with the
NSU badge. An interesting fact is that that the Volkswagen K70 was
developet by NSU and just had another badge when it was launched.
You can see the obvious similarity in the names Ro80 (Rotation) and
K70 (Kolben=German word for piston). See the picture below of
the NSU K70.
Mazda
actually launched their first rotary model just before
the Ro80. It was the Cosmo Sport 110S L10A. In August 1968 they participated
in "Marathon de la Route", a 84 hours endurance racing. And they finished
surprisingly in 4:th place. Not bad for a new-comer.
Mazda have since then produced around 2.000.000 cars with the rotary engine.
Other
manufacturers have of course also experimented and/or
produced rotary powered vehicles. Some of these are:
Cars: GM, Citroen, Mercedes
Motorcycles: Norton, Van Veen, Suzuki
and of course many others.
While Iīm continously updating this site you should come back every now
and then and check out whatīs new.
If you are interested in the history and facts about the rotary engine,
donīt miss
Wankel Rotary Combustion Engines (RCE) and Vehicles.
This site is really something for us "rotarians".
Keep rotating.......
You are visitor number on this page.
Please feel free to contact me in any matter:
lennart.nilsson@mbox337.swipnet.se
Made by: Lennart Nilsson
url: http://home5.swipnet.se/~w-54231
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