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 ...

The rotary engine was an unconventional design that delivered great power for its size. Here's what's good and bad about it.

Wankel rotary engine powered thousands of aircraft. One of several problems: It spewed castor oil on its pilots.

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, ...

Wankel engines first saw use in production cars as early as 1964 — and not even in a Mazda, but rather in an NSU. That little single-rotor powerplant quickly evolved into the more typical two-rotor ...

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 ...

Gone is the 1.3-liter 13B-MSP Renesis rotary engine that came with this car; In its place is a 3.6-liter LFX V6, the same as you’d find in a numer of GM cars.

You hear endless myths about the Mazda RX-7, from breathless praise of its “magic” to horror stories about blown apex seals.

Mazda is most noted for its rotary engine, developed by Felix Wankel in Germany before World War II. But of all its rotary-powered cars, one stands out.

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 ...

Mazda’s rotary engine is coming back in the spotlight, but this time it’s not just a nostalgic callback to the RX-7 glory days. Instead, it’s quietly shaping the brand’s electrified future. Rather ...

Mazda's famous rotary engine finally made its big return last year, but it wasn't under the hood of a replacement for the RX-8. In fact, it wasn't even in a performance car at all. Instead, it served ...