Re: [Amc-list] Re; Curtis Wright Rotary

[adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Sandwich Maker)]

" From: "John Elle" <johnelle@xxxxxxxxx>
" 
" 
"  
" 
" "Curtis Wright +Rotary +motor cycle
" 
" you will get 172 hits one of which will make mention of the Suzuki  motor
" cycle which I have seen, an Artic Cat Snowmobile which I have not seen and

fichtel & sachs [the clutch makers] made smallish wankels for assorted
industrial uses, sort of the briggs & stratton market.  i believe
that's what arctic cat used.

" others will refer to the NSU roadster that I have also seen.

was this the ro80?  a very nice car, made i heard to show what the
company was worth to prospective buyers.

" They also at the
" time made a little 4 door sedan with an in line air cooled 4 cylinder engine
" that was faster than snot. It looked a bit to me as if it was a shrunk down
" Corvair as I remember. It too looked a bit funny when you opened the trunk
" and I believe it had a swing axle system on it too. So when cornered hard
" the wheels assumed some really funny angles.

the prinz, -very- small.  i recall seeing them in europe in the early
'70s; were any ever imported?

swing axles were very common on european cars.  vws had them until the
'70s.

" But Ralph Nador left that one alone, guess he made his fortune
" panning Corvairs. 

he wanted something to establish his creds, and the 'vair was a better
target for him.  he showed what he was, another know-nothing
politician who found a parade [safety in this case] and ran to get in
front of it to show his 'leadership'...

" There is more to going around and around than just Wanks!
" 
" It's too bad that the design was not followed through on and proven to be
" workable in time for vehicles such as the Pacer to be successful and quirky
" rather than just quirky but as my aged memory serves back in the day just
" barely removed from Dinosaurs the rating or equivalent sizes of Rotary
" engines as compared to reciprocating engines had not achieved a parity yet
" that worked, leaving rotaries pretty much looked upon as gas hogs in there
" field and certainly smog compliance which had not been achieved was the
" death knell at the time. Mazda, only one of the manufacturers of Rotary
" based vehicles pulled theirs off of the market until smog and fuel
" consumption (in that order) was dealt with, others just disappeared
" completely for ever as interest was lost. 

mazda always had rotaries in the home market iirc.  also iirc their
first ones [rx3?] did have all the power but astoundingly poor mileage
- low teens in a corolla-sized car.  the nsu ro80 wasn't out of line
for power or mileage.

mazda also gets credit for fighting the seal design war solo.
________________________________________________________________________
Andrew Hay                                  the genius nature
internet rambler                            is to see what all have seen
adh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx                       and think what none thought
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