The Wankel engine powered the Mazda RX-7 to fame, but other pistonless rotary designs reveal why the category is broader than ...

Rotary engines (also known as Wankel engines and Wankel rotary engines) are quite different from piston or "reciprocating" engines. One of the distinguishing features is that they don't need valves to ...

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, ...

Despite electrification taking the lead as an alternative source of propulsion, some automakers, including Toyota, Honda, and ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Peter Lyon is based in Tokyo and writes about the car industry. At the Japan Mobility Show two years ago, Mazda unveiled a ...

The rotary was the most radical rethink of the combustion engine in over a hundred years — and it paid the price for being different. Mazda introduced the innovative Wankel rotary engine in the 1967 ...

Mazda filed six patents related to rotary engines with the Japanese Patent Office on the same day in June, CarBuzz has discovered. The Wankel rotary engine popularized by Mazda will make its return as ...

Designed and championed by self-taught engineer Felix Wankel, the rotary engine is now most closely associated with Japanese automaker Mazda. Many of the greatest Mazdas ever made, including the RX-7 ...

Jack Hubbell is a European based writer and automotive enthusiast who joined the HotCars team in 2024. Jack has been building cars and motorcycles since a young age and was a member of the SCCA from ...

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 ...

For years, we've heard rumors that Mazda was going to bring back the rotary engine and give us a new sports car as a successor to the RX-7 and RX-8. And yet, arguably unsurprisingly, it hasn't ...