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 ...

This means that the high torque efficiency of the two-stroke engine is kept, while the cleanliness and longevity of the four-stroke engine is gained. A win-win scenario. What’s more, the exhaust ...

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 ...

Eighty-five years on from the night when Dr Felix Wankel allegedly dreamed of piloting his own car powered by an engine that was half turbine and half reciprocating, the rotary engine has ...

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 ...