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suck-squeeze-bang-blow principles of the four-stroke Otto Cycle. He called his first engine the Drehkolben Maschine (DKM), although when he perfected the design in the 1950s it had become the Kreiskolben Maschine (KKM). This was an evolution from simple \"rotary\" to a more sophisticated \"planetary\" action: in the mature [Felix Wankel] engine, the triangular rotor moves eccentrically around a chamber whose shape is known as epitrochoidal, the profile generated by rolling a circle around another. For an animated visualisation of this (and every other engine type), visit the marvellous website at www.keveney.com. Because they have no valves, con-rods, cams or belts, Wankel engines are smooth, fast, light and compact. The power (or \"bang\") stroke lasts for 270 degrees, as opposed to 180 degrees in the crude reciprocating engine. This means power. While a piston stops dead as soon as it reaches its maximum speed, a rotor elegantly retains momentum. Wankel engines have flat torque curves and are by many measures (not including fuel consumption) exceptionally efficient. When the first viable Wankel ran on an NSU test bench on February 1, 1957, it produced 29bhp at 17,000rpm from an equivalent combustion chamber volume of 125cc. In 1961, Toyo Kogyo, manufacturer of the Mazda brand, bought a Wankel licence from NSU and, in 1967, produced the rotary-powered Cosmo sports car, predecessor of today's RX-8. Six years later, the unsettling gravity of the Oil Shock forced Mazda to return to conventional engineering, although, by 1978, confidence in the future of petrochemicals had advanced sufficiently for Mazda to reintroduce Wankel power with its first RX-7. The year after, Ford bought a 25 per cent stake in Toyo Kogyo, making Mazda its first trophy brand of modern times.

Nobody but Mazda uses Wankels these days, and Mazda uses them only in its RX-7 sports car, which has undergone a complete redesign for 1992. Instead of cylinders, this [Felix Wankel] employs two three-sided combustion chambers augmented by twin turbochargers that operate sequentially. One works all the time; the other kicks in at higher engine revolutions. Mazda, which has had tremendous success with its Miata sports car, has redesigned the RX-7 with even more sports car purity in mind. It's more raucous and less silky than its predecessor, but also far more exciting to drive. Specifications Model: Mazda RX-7 two-door sports coupe. Engine: 1.3-liter two-rotor Wankel rotary, intercooled sequential twin turbochargers, fuel injection, 255 horsepower. Transmission: Five-speed manual. Overall length: 14 feet 1 inch. EPA cargo volume: 17 cubic feet. Classification: Two-seater. Weight: 2,862 pounds. EPA fuel consumption: 17 miles per gallon city, 25 highway. Base price, including destination charge: $32,850. Pace Publications base dealer cost: $27,650. Price as tested: $35,920. Mazda has done a complete redesign on its RX-7 sports car.

LINDAU, West Germany (AP) - [Felix Wankel], inventor of the rotary engine, has died at age 86.

[Felix Wankel], inventor of the rotary engine, died Sunday. Hewas 86. Mr. Wankel began work on a rotary engine in 1926 and beganproducing the new motor at the West German NSU Motor Works in 1957.

A school drop-out, [FELIX WANKEL] was a largely self-taught engineer and sometime inventor whose first employment in 1924 was with a Heidelberg bookseller. Quite early in his life he conceived the idea of an engine which would use rotary motion, while at the same time contain positive-displacement sealed chambers, acting like the cylinders of a conventional engine and operating on the four- stroke cycle. Realising that the sealing of the combustion spaces was the key to such an engine, Wankel became an expert on the sealing of combustion spaces and the design of rotary valves for conventional working as a consultant to BMW and Daimler-Benz before and during the second World War. NSU introduced a twin rotor Wankel engined car, the NSU Ro 80, to the public in 1967. The Ro 80 was a superb car, but very quickly its unconventional engine exhibited a major weakness. The engine's crucial rotor-tip seals wore at an alarming rate and soon the Ro 80 became notorious for premature loss of performance and reluctance to start. NSU engineers did solve the problem, but not before the Ro 80 had lost all credibility.

Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki and Kawasaki duly set to work on rotorcycles, but only one of them ever became a production reality. Having secured a licence to use the [Felix Wankel] from NSU, no less a person than Jitsujiro Suzuki himself was quoted as saying that his new creation represented \"the beginning of a new age in the history of two-wheel touring\". To set the scene, by the time the RE-5 landed, NSU was already in deep trouble with the fatally flawed Ro80 car, GM had dropped its Wankel, Citroen had abandoned the GS Birotor, and Mazda was still messing around with the dreadful All it had to offer in compensation was novelty value and that celebrated rotary smoothness. In America sales began well but drooped drastically when the machine gained a reputation for preferring a warm workshop to the promised \"new age of two-wheel touring\". In Britain, sales never really started. Even discounts and a revised model with a reduced wackiness quotient failed to tempt us. By 1977 the RE-5 had quietly vanished, after only about 250 sales in the UK.

En 1919 un joven aleman de 17 anos tuvo un sueno de un nuevo motor de combustion interna que 48 anos despues llego al ambito automotriz. El motor tradicional con pistones crea energia mediante movimiento reciprocante, es decir, haciendo que los mismos suban y bajen y luego hagan girar un cigenal que en terminos simplificados es como el mecanismo de una bicicleta donde un eje o flecha hacen girar la transmision y hace girar las ruedas del auto logrando de esta manera movimiento del auto. Este motor en vez de pistones que suben y bajan de manera continua y alternada, usa un impulsor de forma triangular que gira dentro de una carcaza semi-circular (que hace la funcion de los cilindros de un motor de pistones) e impulsa una flecha con montaje excentrico que transfiere la potencia a la transmision.