For more than a decade the name Wankel has popped up whenever car enthusiasts start talking about advanced-design automotive powerplants. The theory of the Wankel engine goes back to 1954 when Dr.

Rotary engines (also known as Wankel engines and Wankel rotary engines) are quite different from piston or "reciprocating" engines. One of the distinguishing features is that they don't need valves to ...

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 ...

Rotary engines, known for their unique design and compact size, have been predominantly associated with Mazda. However, engineers and automotive enthusiasts have experimented with incorporating these ...

What's the first thought that comes to your mind when someone says Corvette? For some, it's a white Corvette C4 driven by Burt Reynolds as he drives off into the sunset in a glorious V8 symphony.

Mazda’s rotary engine is coming back in the spotlight, but this time it’s not just a nostalgic callback to the RX-7 glory days. Instead, it’s quietly shaping the brand’s electrified future. Rather ...

The rotary engine, with its egg-like block and triangular rotor, is an oddball even among all the other oddball engine designs—sorry, three-cylinder, twin-turbo, camless Koenigsegg, ya basic. That ...

Alina has been enthusiastic about vehicles her entire life, and even from an early age found herself itching to get behind the wheel. Through high school and college, she could be found reading ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Peter Lyon is based in Tokyo and writes about the car industry. Mazda’s rotary engine has been officially reborn, but not quite in ...

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 ...