The rotary engine makes a comeback for cars and drones as gasoline gains popularity as a complement to electric motors.

The 1972 Mazda RX-2 arrived as an unassuming compact sedan and coupe, yet its rotary engine delivered performance that ...

In a world dominated by pistons, the rotary engine was something different for motorists. It was the vision of German engineer Felix Wankel, built on the belief that the up-and-down motion of pistons ...

The engine in question was the Wankel rotary, named after German engineer Felix Wankel, who first patented the concept in 1929. Instead of pistons moving back and forth, the rotary engine used a ...

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, ...

Call it resilience or sheer stubbornness, but Mazda still wants to include rotary engines in its future lineup. Of course, ...

Perfectly tuning the heat range of an engine's spark plugs is something of a dark art to all but the most well versed tuners and the engineering egg heads at automotive OEMs. Getting the spark plug ...

Race cars aren't often remembered unless they mean something special; usually, it's the team or the driver that holds the ...

The electric motor might carry the hype banner at the moment, but some minds remain convinced that there's plenty of innovation left to be extracted from internal combustion. AIE is one of the rotary ...

If there's one thing forever associated with the Wankel rotary engine, it's Mazda. Powering production vehicles from the Cosmo's launch in May 1967 to the last RX-8 leaving the plant in June 2012, the ...

The Wankel rotary engine is known for its troubled life in the mainstream automotive industry, its high power-to-weight ratio, and the intoxicating buzz it makes at full tilt. Popular with die-hard ...