The rotary engine has been absent on the frontline for quite some time, and it's on the way back. But not with Mazda.

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 ...

Japanese automaker Mazda discontinued its trademark pistonless rotary engine in 2012. That's also when the RX-8 quad coupe was canned with no successor in sight. Everyone and their dog hoped that the ...

A German engineer, Felix Wankel, is credited with developing the world's first rotary engine in the 1950s. Wankel rotary engines use a triangular rotor spinning in a semi-oval case on an eccentric ...

Mazda began 1920 as Toyo Kogyo Co., Ltd, a manufacturer of corks. Toyo didn't make its first vehicle until 11 years later, a three-wheeled motorbike called the Mazda-go. Founder Jujiro Matsuda named ...

Thomas has spent two years working in the auto journalism industry, contributing to a UK-based newspaper and writing for Euronewsweek. A full-time writer and lifelong engineering enthusiast, he now ...

For more than a decade the name Wankel has popped up whenever car enthusiasts start talking about advanced-design automotive powerplants. The theory of the Wankel engine goes back to 1954 when Dr.

You'd think measuring an engine's displacement would be simple, but there's a long history of trying to figure out how to categorize the Wankel.