The Wankel, better known as the rotary engine, has always held a unique place in the world of performance cars. Compact, lightweight, and capable of high revs, a rotary offered an alternative to ...

Rob Dahm, notorious rotary-powered car builder, has firmly jumped into the deep end of the pool with his latest project: The world's only 15.7-liter, tri-turbo Y12 rotary engine. If that doesn't make ...

Mazda has long had a knack for crafting beautiful concept cars, and at the Japan Mobility Show, it reminded everyone of that talent by revealing two of them. The standout is the Vision-X Coupe, a ...

The Renault R5 Turbo, a mid-engine rally homologation special based on a front-wheel drive hatchback, is not a subtle car to begin with. It might be even less subtle with an unusual engine in its ...

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 ...

Car enthusiasts said their last goodbyes to the Mazda RX-8, as well as the rotary sports car as a whole, back in 2012 when Mazda discontinued it. While the RX-8 took a different approach to that ...

If there's one thing forever associated with the Wankel rotary engine, it's Mazda. Powering production vehicles from the Cosmo's launch in May 1967 to the last RX-8 leaving the plant in June 2012, the ...

Mazda’s rotary engine has been officially reborn, but not quite in the way you might think. Yes, we saw a drop-dead gorgeous Iconic SP rotary-hybrid coupe concept unveiled at last October’s Japan ...

In a world dominated by pistons, the rotary engine was something different for motorists. It was the vision of German engineer Felix Wankel, built on the belief that the up-and-down motion of pistons ...

Alina has been enthusiastic about vehicles her entire life, and even from an early age found herself itching to get behind the wheel. Through high school and college, she could be found reading ...

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 ...