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 ...

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 ...

Rotary engines made their biggest impact in Mazda sports cars, but a recent episode of "Jay Leno's Garage" delves into the rotary's earlier history. Before it was popularized by Mazda, the rotary ...

In theory, Wankel-style rotary internal combustion engines have many advantages: they ditch the cumbersome crankcase and piston design, replacing it with a simple, single-chamber design and a thick, ...

Designed and championed by self-taught engineer Felix Wankel, the rotary engine is now most closely associated with Japanese automaker Mazda. Many of the greatest Mazdas ever made, including the RX-7 ...

Developing a gasoline-powered rotary engine was a dream for Felix Wankel, and we mean that literally. Some steam engines worked on the same basic principle as far back as the 18th century, but the ...

Mazda on Friday used the 2023 Brussels auto show to present a modern vehicle fitted with a rotary engine. The engine, a compact single-rotor design displacing 0.83 liters, serves as a range extender ...

A look at Chevrolet’s 1970s rotary sports car experiment, its mid-engine layout, and why the bold concept never reached ...

Kenichi Yamamoto, who led the engineering team that produced a commercially viable rotary engine at what is now known as Mazda Motor Co. and later became its president and chairman, died Dec. 20 in ...