Far ahead of its time
In 1967 the NSU RO 80 was nothing
short of a revolution. Its aerodynamic
body was later to influence the design
of entire vehicle generations at Audi. Its
unique technical feature was the rotary
piston or Wankel engine.
Felix Wankel (1902–1988) had been
working on the construction of rotary
piston engines since the mid-twenties.
His aim then was to eliminate the
“shaking” of conventional engines. In
1936 he was awarded the patent for
the rotary piston engine. At the beginning
of the fifties he teamed up with
NSU in Neckarsulm. The Wankel-rotary
piston engine was jointly developed,
to be presented in the NSU Spider as
the first series-manufactured car at the
IAA in 1963. It was followed by the
R 80, which was series-produced up
until 1977. Nowadays Wankel engines
are predominantly used by Japanese
car manufacturers, like Mazda, whose
1991 RX-7 model won the 24-hour Le
Mans car race.
Incidentally, Felix Wankel himself never
owned a driver’s licence. He liked to be
chauffeur-driven in his NSU RO 80.
