[taildragger]

People forget, those things were fairly popular in their day. Head stylist Dick Teague did the best he could, considering that his original design specs were for a much smaller car with a Wankel engine.

* The GM Wankel, If my memory is correct, they were to be a customer.
* The one they spent some 2 billion late 60's early 70's dollars to design, develop and production tool for.
* One of my gnomes told me they made 1 or 2 for tax purposes off the production line then scrapped it all.

Dang shame, now Mazda has killed their Wankel for good.

With it's smooth-ness and small size, I can only imagine how much different the Pacer would have been with the GM Wankel.

[Nik Naym]

“Dang shame, now Mazda has killed their Wankel for good.”

Mazda claims it is going to come back. I don’t know if it will.

The RX8 got 20 MPG on a good day.

Government mandated fuel economy standards killed it.

The EPA has upped CAFE standard to something like 62 MPG starting soon.

We won’t be able to buy anything more than a four banger or a stupid hybrid after that.

[nascarnation]

Yeah the Wankel has many positive attributes, especially for performance.
Unfortunately fuel economy and emissions aren’t up to the best piston engine levels, and those are the goals (set by the govt) today.