Against all odds, Mazda won the 1991 24 Hours of Le Mans with its rotary-powered 787B. But a quiet regulatory concession helped make the unlikely happen.
The rotary engine has been a Mazda staple since 1967. It powered one of the most famous and eccentric Japanese sports car line-ups, the RX-series, until 2012 when Mazda discontinued pure ...
Mazda has shifted towards the Skyactiv-Z inline-four engine, focusing on combustion perfection and future emissions requirements.
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 ...
Mazda 13B rotary engine in a white Mazda RX-7 engine bay. - TTTNIS/Wikimedia Commons When it comes to unconventional engine design, few exceed the Wankel rotary in terms of weirdness. Despite that, ...
Rotary engines are already known for their high RPM; the smaller they get, the higher they tend to rev. So what happens when the world’s smallest rotary engine gets put to the test? Well, 30,000 RPM ...
Chris Bruce has worked in the automotive industry since 2011 and has written thousands of stories about cars, motorsports, and motorcycles in that time. He has written for Autoblog, Autoviva, CarFax, ...
It’s been over a decade since Mazda showed off a hydrogen rotary engine, but the lessons in engineering linger to this day. When it comes to engines, the Wankel rotary is one of the lightest and ...
Over-the-top rotary builds are an enthusiast tradition. Because so few rotary cars have been made, the limits of the engine type haven't been fully exploited by automakers. It's been tuners who have ...
The gist is that, according to Mogo, the Iconic-SP concept was very well received. Count MotorTrend in that camp, as the sleek coupe concept and its cult-classic rotary engine (even relegated to range ...
Rotary engines come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They can be as large as this six-rotor unit powering a Mazda RX-4 drag car in New Zealand, or as small as this 2.4-cc single-rotor engine above.
This 1970 Citroën M35 actually enjoyed the open road for many years after it was delivered to its first owner. How it reached them, though, is another story.