Word: wankel
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Just after the 1973 oil embargo, the company created a special unit to develop new cars. The notable results include the RX-7 sports car, which gets about 24 m.p.g. from its improved Wankel engine, and the GLC. That compact is known as the Familia in Japan and the 323 in other parts of the world. Ford markets a version of its own, called the Laser, in 44 Asian countries. While the car looks suspiciously like a Volkswagen Rabbit, there is one important difference: the GLC sells for about $5,475, while a Rabbit costs...
...companies have survived setbacks as stunning as the one that befell Japan's Toyo Kogyo Co. Ltd., the maker of Mazda cars and trucks, in the mid-1970s. At the time, nearly half of Mazda's vehicles used the revolutionary Wankel engine, in which a rotor instead of pistons produces the power. When the world oil crisis began in 1973, the gas-guzzling Wankels became a sales disaster because they delivered a maximum of only about 15 miles to the gallon. The company seemed headed for the corporate scrap heap. Recalls one executive: "Every day felt like doomsday...
...dangerous, given the protectionist mood of many countries. Voluntary export restraints by Japan have slowed GLC sales in the U.S. Americans bought only 13,388 of the autos in the first three months of 1982, in contrast to 21,209 a year ago. After recovering from the Wankel crisis, though, any troubles now seem almost minor...