The internal combustion engine, for all its mechanical sophistication, still runs on a 19th-century mechanical idea: pistons rising and falling, a crankshaft spinning, a steam-age architecture ...

Typically, when we think of legacy brands that have employed the use of the Wankel rotary engine in the past, Mazda is virtually the only automaker that comes to mind. After all, the Japanese marque ...

For more than a decade the name Wankel has popped up whenever car enthusiasts start talking about advanced-design automotive powerplants. The theory of the Wankel engine goes back to 1954 when Dr.

Wankel rotary engine powered thousands of aircraft. One of several problems: It spewed castor oil on its pilots.