Re: Audi+rotary engines!

[Aleksander Mierzwa <alex@matrix.pl>]

At 21:39 20.10.98 -0400, Graydon D. Stuckey wrote:

>> My quattro frenzied brother has long held that Mazda uses an Audi 
>> license to produce the Wankel.  Wankel, isn't that a German name?
>
>Yes, the Wankel was designed by Dr. Felix Wankel, a German, and was
>licensed to Mazda back in '64 if my memory serves me. Nearly every major
>automaker purchased a license at one time.  Only Mazda reached widespread
>commercial success (and near failure) with the Wankel design.  I am not
>sure who owns Wankel's rights now, but I think it is NSU, which everyone
>here knows (I hope) is part of Audi.  You can find all this stuff out
>there on the 'net. 

You may find it interesting that Lada has long been working on rotary
engines and right now has them in mass production. They are claiming
performance figures for Wankel-powered Samara of 0-100kph in 8 seconds and
top speed of 200kph. The engine is 1.3l N/A producing 140hp. They also
claim the engine can do 300Kkm without rebuild. The URL is
http://www.vaz.ru/skbrpd - you need to be able to read Russian, though.

Aleksander Mierzwa
Warsaw, Poland
mailto:alex@matrix.pl
87 Audi 5000CS turbo (mine)
88 Renault Medallion wagon (mom's)
91 mountain bike (just in case both cars broke at the same time :-)