Word: nsu
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...German carmaker NSU Motorenwerke last week displayed an ultra-utilitarian sedan that will, it hopes, sire a new generation of automobiles. Called RO 80, the new car has a strange engine under the hood, one that increasingly intrigues the automotive industry...
...mechanical wizard named Felix Wankel invented it in 1954, but it took NSU 13 years of tinkering to bring the "Wankel engine" to its present stage. It is a non-piston gas engine consisting of a three-cornered rotor that swirls in a combustion chamber shaped like a fat-waisted figure eight. Doing away with the stop-and-start movements of the piston engine saves valuable power for a continuous circular movement. The RO 80 will feature two half-liter engines, placed side by side, yet even this will only take up half as much space as a conventional motor...
...early version of the Wankel, used in the NSU Spider sports car since 1964, proved sufficiently promising for NSU to go ahead with the venture and commit virtually all its resources to it. Meanwhile, 17 firms, including Curtiss-Wright Corp. and Outboard Marine Corp. in the U.S., Rolls-Royce in England and Alfa Romeo in Italy have paid NSU for licenses for the new engine. Citroen of France set up a joint corporation with the small German carmaker to produce a Wankel-powered auto by the beginning...
Germany's ten manufacturers showed off 30 basic models that come in 155 different versions, all with higher horsepower than before. Notable among them: Opel's completely restyled fastback Kadett, which borrows some of its lines from the Ford Mustang, and NSU's Spider, the only car in the world powered by the Wankel engine. Twelve companies in the U.S., Britain, France, Italy and Japan are now experimenting with the engine (which was developed in 1954 by Felix Wankel, a German engineer). The Wankel replaces conventional pistons and cylinders with a triangular rotor, has only two major...