No, not a thread about heavy-duty gardening implements, but rather inspired by the Six Degrees thread retrorides.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=140046&page=15 Since it went off on a tangent about weirdness in the world of Wankel (snigger), I thought it might be worth putting up a bit about one of the rarest of the ill-fated rotary projects.
As you all no doubt know, NSU were the original developers of Dr Felix's wunderkind new engine, and having thrust their first attempt on the world,
the single-rotor trans-axle propelled two-seat WankelSpider (yes, really)
they went on to hit proper mass-production with the ill-fated RO80, an excellent car in many respects but unfortunately the one that probably went furthest towards dispelling the myth of German engineering excellence
(sorry, not my own pic). They tried to recoup some of the ferociously expensive development costs by licensing the tech to other companies. If only they'd spent slightly more ferociously their own product might have been a more durable device, but there you go. Most of the larger manufacturers took out an option on the Wankel (snigger), with some bowing out early on (Ford dropped it without bringing a single prototype to fruition, for example, despite all their engineering and financial might)
Some of the various marques made it as far as running concepts, such as the Mercedes C111
but mostly they were still-born in light of the difficulties of proper apex tip sealing, rotor housing wear, and the frightening fuel consumption and emissions problems of early attempts. Citroen bravely shoved their Birotor blinking out into the light
image courtesy of Citroen themselves, which is why it's that rarest of things, a Birotor actually moving under it's own power. The car was a heroic failure, to the point where Citroen were forced to offer an in-and-out straight swap for engines that had turned themselves FUBAR, and the cost of this was clearly horrific. The car was nixed by the French bean-counters before it could bankrupt them.
Mazda, despite being about the smallest of the Japanese marques, persisted and due mostly to the incredible effort and inspiration of Mr Yamamoto and his engineering team managed to take their first attempt, ol' Smokey Badger
forward until it finally became the first of many Mazda rotary-powered production cars, the 110S Cosmo
and very nice it was, too!
However, one of the most secretive and furtive of all the Wankel (snigger) projects was the GM Corvette. You'd have thought a company with the colossal might and power of the Corporation could have made it work, if anyone could. And to a degree, you'd have been right. There were four (probably, details are sketchy) working cars made, with varying numbers of rotors as power units. Rumours persist that GM were working on a four rotor but to the best of my knowledge this fabled beast has never been seen outside their backroom secret labs. The four-rotor would have made an immense power unit, Mazda themselves used a naturally aspirated quad-rotor to power their incomparable 787B to an historic leMans victory (detuned to a "mere" ~900 bhp for reliability reasons!). Here's a pic of it simply because it's one of the best cars Evarrr... IMHO, of course)
Anyway, rather than stick their rotary into a stock buck derived from the existing Corvette models of the day, GM went completely bonkers and contrived a one-off bodyshell designed by an Italian styling house (none other than Pinifarina IIRC) based very loosely on 2+2 Vega/Monza underpinnings, holding a mid-mounted transverse-fitted version of the engine. To my knowledge, there's only one that survived the crusher and still exists.
You have to remember, the car culture in the US at this time was utterly disposable; they didn't bother with all that tedious nonsense like preserving things for prosperity. Many amazing concept cars were re-used for spares, crushed, or simply pushed out onto a back lot to rot away. Some were rescued by enthusiasts who saw their value, such as the famous story of George Barris buying the Lincoln Futura concept. When a certain TV prodction company knocked on his door asking him for a futuristic rocket-powered car they could use in their new superhero series, he had just the thing... and the Batmobile was born looking remarkably similar to a certain abandonded concept car.
Anyway, one of the 'vettes made it's way out of the dungeons of Chevrolet and now resides in the hands of a collector. I was privileged to see it in the "flesh" one day when Garry Marks, proprietor of Rotary Art and partner in Rotechnics, held an open day to mark the re-launch of the company. He collected some of the rarest and most interesting rotary cars in Europe, such as the Spider and Cosmo shown above.... and the RotorVette. In a typical bout of utter spazzwittery, I managed to leave my camera at home that day so all I have are appalling mobile phone pics of it, but here they are, FWIW
The car was (is) currently fitted with a Mazda 12A engine in place of the missing GM rotary (who knows where that priceless piece of history ended up?) in the original mid-mount
As you can see, much of the car is one-off stuff, the interior is absolutely in-keeping with the "futuristic" cockpit design concepts of the time. And it's wonderful!
Front-mounted radiator cooling results in plumber's nightmare, world's scariest spacesaver spare tyre also pictured!
Snug fit for the engine, no idea how a quad-rotor was supposed to fit in here
Still found room for a boot, though. So long as you didn't mind your sandwiches toasted, and your champagne warmed
Although popular legend ahs the car as a Corvette, the official Gm designation was to be the Vega RC2-206. As you can see, it looks pretty much nothing like though. I love the tiny frenched-in lights, pre-dating Maserati LED strips by some decades!
The project was finally postponed indefinitely (not abandoned, apparently) in September 1974, and the world is a poorer place for it in my view.
Awww, just look at it's little sad face. Who wouldn't want to give it a home? Thanks for reading my potted history, and please excuse the terrible pics and no doubt multiple inaccuracies. This was written from memory, not Wikipedia lol, so hopefully I haven't gone too far wide of the truth
As you all no doubt know, NSU were the original developers of Dr Felix's wunderkind new engine, and having thrust their first attempt on the world,
the single-rotor trans-axle propelled two-seat WankelSpider (yes, really)
they went on to hit proper mass-production with the ill-fated RO80, an excellent car in many respects but unfortunately the one that probably went furthest towards dispelling the myth of German engineering excellence
(sorry, not my own pic). They tried to recoup some of the ferociously expensive development costs by licensing the tech to other companies. If only they'd spent slightly more ferociously their own product might have been a more durable device, but there you go. Most of the larger manufacturers took out an option on the Wankel (snigger), with some bowing out early on (Ford dropped it without bringing a single prototype to fruition, for example, despite all their engineering and financial might)
Some of the various marques made it as far as running concepts, such as the Mercedes C111
but mostly they were still-born in light of the difficulties of proper apex tip sealing, rotor housing wear, and the frightening fuel consumption and emissions problems of early attempts. Citroen bravely shoved their Birotor blinking out into the light
image courtesy of Citroen themselves, which is why it's that rarest of things, a Birotor actually moving under it's own power. The car was a heroic failure, to the point where Citroen were forced to offer an in-and-out straight swap for engines that had turned themselves FUBAR, and the cost of this was clearly horrific. The car was nixed by the French bean-counters before it could bankrupt them.
Mazda, despite being about the smallest of the Japanese marques, persisted and due mostly to the incredible effort and inspiration of Mr Yamamoto and his engineering team managed to take their first attempt, ol' Smokey Badger
forward until it finally became the first of many Mazda rotary-powered production cars, the 110S Cosmo
and very nice it was, too!
However, one of the most secretive and furtive of all the Wankel (snigger) projects was the GM Corvette. You'd have thought a company with the colossal might and power of the Corporation could have made it work, if anyone could. And to a degree, you'd have been right. There were four (probably, details are sketchy) working cars made, with varying numbers of rotors as power units. Rumours persist that GM were working on a four rotor but to the best of my knowledge this fabled beast has never been seen outside their backroom secret labs. The four-rotor would have made an immense power unit, Mazda themselves used a naturally aspirated quad-rotor to power their incomparable 787B to an historic leMans victory (detuned to a "mere" ~900 bhp for reliability reasons!). Here's a pic of it simply because it's one of the best cars Evarrr... IMHO, of course)
Anyway, rather than stick their rotary into a stock buck derived from the existing Corvette models of the day, GM went completely bonkers and contrived a one-off bodyshell designed by an Italian styling house (none other than Pinifarina IIRC) based very loosely on 2+2 Vega/Monza underpinnings, holding a mid-mounted transverse-fitted version of the engine. To my knowledge, there's only one that survived the crusher and still exists.
You have to remember, the car culture in the US at this time was utterly disposable; they didn't bother with all that tedious nonsense like preserving things for prosperity. Many amazing concept cars were re-used for spares, crushed, or simply pushed out onto a back lot to rot away. Some were rescued by enthusiasts who saw their value, such as the famous story of George Barris buying the Lincoln Futura concept. When a certain TV prodction company knocked on his door asking him for a futuristic rocket-powered car they could use in their new superhero series, he had just the thing... and the Batmobile was born looking remarkably similar to a certain abandonded concept car.
Anyway, one of the 'vettes made it's way out of the dungeons of Chevrolet and now resides in the hands of a collector. I was privileged to see it in the "flesh" one day when Garry Marks, proprietor of Rotary Art and partner in Rotechnics, held an open day to mark the re-launch of the company. He collected some of the rarest and most interesting rotary cars in Europe, such as the Spider and Cosmo shown above.... and the RotorVette. In a typical bout of utter spazzwittery, I managed to leave my camera at home that day so all I have are appalling mobile phone pics of it, but here they are, FWIW
The car was (is) currently fitted with a Mazda 12A engine in place of the missing GM rotary (who knows where that priceless piece of history ended up?) in the original mid-mount
As you can see, much of the car is one-off stuff, the interior is absolutely in-keeping with the "futuristic" cockpit design concepts of the time. And it's wonderful!
Front-mounted radiator cooling results in plumber's nightmare, world's scariest spacesaver spare tyre also pictured!
Snug fit for the engine, no idea how a quad-rotor was supposed to fit in here
Still found room for a boot, though. So long as you didn't mind your sandwiches toasted, and your champagne warmed
Although popular legend ahs the car as a Corvette, the official Gm designation was to be the Vega RC2-206. As you can see, it looks pretty much nothing like though. I love the tiny frenched-in lights, pre-dating Maserati LED strips by some decades!
The project was finally postponed indefinitely (not abandoned, apparently) in September 1974, and the world is a poorer place for it in my view.
Awww, just look at it's little sad face. Who wouldn't want to give it a home? Thanks for reading my potted history, and please excuse the terrible pics and no doubt multiple inaccuracies. This was written from memory, not Wikipedia lol, so hopefully I haven't gone too far wide of the truth