The internal combustion engine, for all its mechanical sophistication, still runs on a 19th-century mechanical idea: pistons rising and falling, a crankshaft spinning, a steam-age architecture ...
Not every engine has a set of pistons that move up and down in a cylinder. The Wankel, or rotary engine, delivers its power with rotational force rather than a reciprocating mass that hammers out ...
Pop the hood on a classic Mazda RX-7 or RX-8 and the engine bay looks oddly empty. That is the charm of the rotary engine: a compact lump of metal that trades pistons and valves for a spinning ...