The internal combustion engine, for all its mechanical sophistication, still runs on a 19th-century mechanical idea: pistons rising and falling, a crankshaft spinning, a steam-age architecture ...

A Wankel engine is a type of rotary engine, but not all rotary engines are Wankel engines. Wrapping your mind around this idea will help you to better understand the similarities as well as the ...

When it comes to unique engine designs, one of the most prolific is the trusty rotary configuration. Instead of featuring a number of spherical cylinders moving up and down like in most internal ...

In theory, Wankel-style rotary internal combustion engines have many advantages: they ditch the cumbersome crankcase and piston design, replacing it with a simple, single-chamber design and a thick, ...

The rotary engine is unique in its success and failure and its ability to make an impact with a completely different way of thinking. As it is, every production car for the last 130 years, aside from ...

Mazda made a splash in the market in 1990, launching the Eunos Cosmo with the three-rotor 20B engine. Compared with contemporary Wankel rotary engines, the 20B's extra rotor beefed the compact ...

For a time, the Wankel rotary engine seemed like the future. In 1963, German automaker NSU—later absorbed into Audi—debuted the Wankel Spider, the first internal-combustion production car not powered ...

The rotary engine is perhaps one of the most polarizing motors to have ever been commercialized. From its checkered past to its intent to live on as a range extender, the small spinning triangle has ...