Word: rotaryism
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In the headquarters of Detroit's automakers, executive desk tops and coffee tables have lately sprouted plastic models of a strange-looking engine, and in high-level conversations around them, knowing mentions are made of something called an epitrochoid. Visitors soon learn that the models are see-through likenesses...
Coattails. The Wankel revolution has been expected for years, chiefly because of the rotary engine's elegant simplicity. Instead of converting up-and-down piston motion into wheel-driving circular energy through a series of complex linkages-the way a standard engine works-the Wankel rotors spin continuously and...
Detroit's Big Three are pushing extensive, top-secret research projects on the Wankel, and investors and businessmen are already revving up to cut themselves in on the profits. Except for General Motors, which in 1970 bought a license to make Wankels in a deal that will eventually cost...
The boomlet has been helped along considerably by the reception given to the first rotary-powered car available in the U.S., Japan's smooth-riding and exceptionally zippy Mazda (TIME, April 5, 1971). Some 20,000 Mazdas were sold last year, even though the car has been made available...
Since Detroit's plans for the Wankel are still under wraps, U.S. automakers try to remain noncommittal in public. Occasionally they do not succeed. A top GM engineering executive told TIME Detroit Bureau Chief Ed Reingold: "Just wait until you see our rotary-it's ten times better...