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 ...

When you take a look back at the extensive timeline of the automobile, there are plenty of brands that have a particular affinity with a certain type of engineering solution or technology. Think of ...

Long before Felix Wankel became synonymous with rotary engines, an inventive Hungarian-American engineer named Stephen M. Balzer secured one of the earliest patents for a rotary-powered automobile on ...

In the early '90s, Mazda's rotary-powered RX-7 was the quintessential Japanese two-seat sports car. But then the Miata ...

The Wankel rotary engine was made popular by Mazda, who built rotary style engines from in production cars such as the RX-7, ...

Chris Bruce has worked in the automotive industry since 2011 and has written thousands of stories about cars, motorsports, and motorcycles in that time. He has written for Autoblog, Autoviva, CarFax, ...

Mazda says the Iconic SP concept was designed to be turned into a production car. The two-door sports car is powered by an extended-range powertrain. A two-rotor Wankel gas engine acts as a generator ...

The Wankel rotary engine is known for its troubled life in the mainstream automotive industry, its high power-to-weight ratio, and the intoxicating buzz it makes at full tilt. Popular with die-hard ...

In the early days of engine building, a pre-Wankel rotary engine powered thousands of aircraft. One of several problems: It spewed castor oil on its pilots.

There are a lot of strange automotive designs out there, but this defunct engine from the '70s may just be the weirdest one ...