The German engineer Felix Wankel, inventor of a rotary engine that will be used in race cars, dies on October 9, 1988, in Lahr, Germany. Wankel reportedly came up with the basic idea for a new type of ...

Mazda isn't quite ready to give up on combustion engines, arguing that gasoline power still has plenty of life left. Mazda is showing little interest in abandoning the internal combustion engine, even ...

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 was the most radical rethink of the combustion engine in over a hundred years — and it paid the price for being different.

When most people hear the term "rotary engine," they probably think of Mazda first, as rotary engines have been part and parcel of the Japanese automaker's mantra for decades. In fact, Mazda proclaims ...

The rotary engine, a unique and unconventional design, has provided Mazda with remarkable advantages in the world of racing. Its lightweight, compact structure and distinctive power delivery have set ...

In a world dominated by pistons, the rotary engine was something different for motorists. It was the vision of German engineer Felix Wankel, built on the belief that the up-and-down motion of pistons ...

Good news, everyone! Mazda is not only reassembling a dedicated team of engineers for rotary engine development, as we’ve reported earlier, but today it also announced its intention to expedite ...

Rotary engines tend to conjure images of a few famous sports cars, yet a surprising number of coupes, sedans, concepts, and even workhorses quietly packed spinning triangles under their hoods. By ...

If there's one thing forever associated with the Wankel rotary engine, it's Mazda. Powering production vehicles from the Cosmo's launch in May 1967 to the last RX-8 leaving the plant in June 2012, the ...

There have only been a handful of rotary engine-powered cars, and most of them start with "Mazda." While fascinating and not without their benefits, rotary engines are pretty inefficient, don't make a ...

Astron aerospace has shown a partial prototype of a new rotary combustion engine it claims runs at an extraordinary 60% thermal efficiency, burning totally clean with zero NOx emissions and nothing ...