This rotary-engine sedan was a revolution (and a total failure).
Fewer than 38,000 of NSU’s revolutionary Ro80 models were built in the 10 years between its debut late in 1967 and the day in 1977 that NSU’s corporate parent, Volkswagen-Audi, turned the factory that built them over to Porsche 924 production, thus laying the NSU brand – which dated back to the 19century but was merged into Audi in 1969 in desperation following the Ro80’s inauspicious launch – to rest.
is the first English-language book-length appreciation of the machine. In it, he makes the contrarian-yet-convincing case for its having been “a masterpiece” with wit and style.Consider – the first ever family sedan purpose-built around a twin-rotor Wankel engine, with class-leading aerodynamics, fully-independent suspension and modernism all about it. Front-wheel-drive, four-wheel disc brakes, in-board at front. Superior outward visibility in all directions.
Larger displacement four-cylinder models that followed offered still more performance helped keep pace with a growing European middle class. Heartening success in touring car racing and hill-climbing also ensued, but before long the air-cooled, rear-engine cars were increasingly seen as outdated, called on to hold down the fort against the arrival of the paradigm-shifting front-drive NSU K70 Once again, NSU would point the way forward for VW, before it got kicked to the curb.
For instance, the curious doctor had imagined the engine’s rotor and casing both rotating while cooler heads suggested that the rotor circulate in a fixed casing. “You have made a cart horse out of my racehorse,” Wankel thundered. “If only we had a cart horse!” NSU’s top executive and a rotary booster, Gerd Von Heydekampf, replied. As much as possible, Wankel, though admired, was kept away from the business of practical engineering.
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