Alfa Romeo's Secret Rotary Engine Project
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ม.ค. 2023
- During the 1960s and into the early 70s, the rotary engine invented by Felix Wankel and developed by the German automaker NSU has been the auto industry's darling, with no self-respecting automaker wanting to risk being left behind.
Made of fewer moving parts, compact yet powerful, high-revving yet free of vibrations, the Wankel rotary engine held great promise compared to period automobile powerplants, and the long list of companies that bought a Wankel license from NSU includes Alfa Romeo.
#wankel #alfaromeo #history #rotaryengine
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A lot of manufacturers were working on rotary projects, but I didn't know Alfa was one of them. Interesting, you learn something new every day.
That’s what this channel is all about :)
I hadn't known Italian carmakers fell into the Wankel trap too... but on reflection, it would have been odd if they hadn't. The rotary and its broken dream were a significant part of my car-fascinated childhood. A colleague of my father's drove (and loved) an Ro80. It was like stepping into the future. A physics teacher at school rode in on a Suzuki RE5. And he was (because of the bike) the best possible physics teacher. A childhood neighbour had an RX3 when they were vanishingly rare. To this day, the most excited I have been to see a car (as an adult) was when I spotted a Citroën M35 in a small town in the Aveyron in 1992. There is something about rotaries... I don't mean the endless RX8s lurking on pub car parks for years... I mean to he mad, space-age, dream-inducing rotaries of the 70s. Of course they failed, but they did so with style. I am happy to learn that Alfa were playing the same game.
It is indeed fascinating the Wankel engine, probably because it was always so rare. So rare, in fact, that I’ve never had the chance to drive a car fitted with one. Would quite like to own a Ro80 as a classic, by the way!
Sure, they failed commercially, but let's not forget that the R26B powered 787B is the only Japanese car in history to win Lemans, and along the way that it gave us one of the greatest noises in the history of the internal combustion engine, and as a dyed in the wool car guy (and self confessed rotard) for that alone I can never call it a failure full stop.
Same story for me, 2 persons I knew had RO 80 's when I was young, and they had lot of issues with them !
Main Wankel's problem remains its lack of sealing, it eats oil and can't satisfy to pollution new standards, as the 2 stroke engine.
You are naive in thinking it that way. It's post war axis of Evil. German design , Italy hop on it and Japan made it work. Their plan to take over the world is around us in 4 and 2 wheels.
@@Matteo_Licata It's a rotary engine car , not that rare , go and find a RX7. If it's a rotary engine bike, than it's very, very rare.
This would be my dream. I love Alfa’s and I love rotary engines
It wouldn't have been surprising if half of their management would have wanted to ditch the rotary engine anyways, because the twin cam looked so much better in an engine bay😁Thanks for the video!
The ultimate combination for reliability😂😂
Alfas don't have bad reliability for race cars. They built for pure enjoyment and anything that's enjoyable unfortunately does not last long. At least that's what she told me 🤣
@@fedorthebear7470 idk, newer alfas are pretty reliable
They're more reliable than the German competition
Yeah, wankel + italian ftw! 😂😂😂
Citroën also built a rotary, imagine it.
A GTV screaming at 10k rpm would have been quite a thing to behold. Thanks for giving me an informal pub quiz wining question! I can pretty much guarantee that no car geek mate of mine would come up with AR as having manufactured a rotary even in prototype form.
Thank you, glad I showed you something new: that's what this channel strives for!
Imagine what would have been if Alfa had solved all the problems of the Wankel engine... Thanks for another interesting video. Ciao 🙋♂️
Given the resources available to them, it’s unlikely the Alfa engineers could really deliver a reliable Wankel… But it’s fun to know they tried :)
Back in the mid 70s I had two Mazda RX3s, as a young gun at the time I loved them with their rotary engine, sadly both failed with engine problems.
Seems most manufacturers bought the rotary licence and built a prototype at some time.
To more recent times I became a classic Japanese motorcycle restorer restoring two Suzuki RE5s one of each model, an over engineered heavy rotary engine but Suzuki seemed to have cracked it, no problems whatsoever and all the whispers one hears about rotaries most are not true when it comes to the Suzuki RE5, knowledge of the rotary and regular maintenance is the key.
Thank you Matteo for another great piece of content shared! I definitely learned something new about the meshmerizing history of Alfa Romeo today. Please do not hesitate to keep sharing such content. I am a fan of your channel!
Glad to hear that, thank you!!! Rest assured I'll keep making these videos for as long as enthusiasts will enjoy them :)
If my memory serves me correctly there were originally 12 companies who licensed the technology
nteresting! A real Alfa Rotary? I've never been aware of it.
That’s what this channel is all about :)
Glad I made you discover something new!
Gud that they did cancel it. There is no way in a million years they can do what Mazda did
Wow what a wonderful engine but nobody ever used apart from NSU and Mazda because of the complications and the hight consumption of oil just like a 2 stroke engine
Woww ..Alfa Rotary..wlil share this video ..thnks matteo ..
Thank you, glad you liked it!
And suddenly -- we have a brand new Wankel powered car from Mazda! :-)
Well, yes and no.
The MX30's rotary serves as a generator and doesn't send power to the wheels under any circumstance. So it's got a Wankel, but whether it's "powered" by it, that's debatable :)
@@Matteo_Licata It's powered after the batteries run out -- which happens in no time :-)
@@Matteo_Licata BTW -- a fan of your channel and Alfa Romeos. I don't own one currently, but before I sold my last one I recorded the sound of the 3.0 Busso :-) Everybody must own an Alfa once in their life or they have not lived!
@@ShootOnFilm Thank you! 3.0 Busso... Was it a GTV or a 164?
I’d never thought Alfa would have been interested , not with their heritage in twin cam engines, which their sales was very much pitched on.
Amazing! I never knew even Alfa toyed with the Wankel engine. Thanks for the details!
High fuel consumption and (as you mentioned) poor longevity killed that technology.
Glad you enjoyed the video! Yes, the Wankel was an engineering dead-end, and perhaps that’s why it’s such an intriguing subject
I wish it was made. Surely would had ben special .
A tecnologia serviu para a Mazda vencer as 24 Lemans 91
Thanks.
You're welcome!
Happy new year to you Matheo. Have you ever driven a car with the rotary?? Kind regards and best wishes Mike.
Thank you, happy new year to you too! No, never had the chance to drive a Wankel
@@Matteo_Licata Thought so. Do yourself a favour and beg, borrow or steal an RX8. Trust me Matheo, your driving experience is incomplete. Get back to me afterwards. G, Mike
Grande alfa romeo
Good job it never went ahead. Even Mazda failed to make a reliable Wankel engine, so it's doubtful Alfa Romeo would have done, and the financial impact on Alfa would have been much more devastating to the company.
Yeah, it’s a good thing it never went ahead, after all.
Os motores rotativos de hoje estão bem tecnologicamente
When I first red the headline i thought alfa had started development on a New rotery engene fore a future car lounch. Insted it was a history lession. I had no idea alpha romeo tried to build one and altho this deaply pains me to admi this, they made the right choice sticking with conventional piston engienes
Alfaholics should build a Gulietta restomod with a Mazda 13b! UUUUÄÄÄÄHH!!!
It’s a case of good fortune. The inherently unreliable Rotary would have only further tarnished Alfas reputation.
I wonder if anyone would want to do an alt-history restomod build by 13B-swapping an early '70s Alfa...
Might be a Job for Alfaholics.
Name more reliable duo, i'll wait
How do I know you're Italian?
発電用にロータリーを使う、って意味かな。レンジエクステンダーで。
Rotaries have a place, somewhere, I guess…
…In a museum, and our memories. Nowhere else, I’d say.
Pretty sure Mercedes tinkered with one too but threw it in the bin
It did. Mercedes even presented a striking gull-wing door supercar prototype called C111, powered by a three-rotor engine.
well mercedes did and i all ready knew
If Only the Engineering Gurus had Realized what People today a Rotary Needs A Supercharger of some type to Really Perform it would have had a Chance.🤔👍
Damn i been bullied enough for owning a "unreliable alfa" imagine if it had a wankel too
But has your Alfa really been unreliable? These cars are much better than their reputation suggest :)
@RoadsterLifeVideo yea 4 years serviced it regularly only changed the rear disks in that time
I have a 156 1.8 ts and even tho people talk bad about it i love it so much 😁
I’m not an engineer but just by looking the concept of rotary engine success is highly unlikely.
Yeah, it was a flawed concept, so it's quite surprising how much investment and attention it received in the period. By the way, Felix Wankel wasn't an engineer either. He had little formal education and was mostly self-taught.
If they can achieve what mazda failed on then why not
I never know that. No wonder that Alfa and other car manufactures (except Mazda and NSU which btw ends in bankruptcy) stop developing Wankel engines.
Lada kept their rotary engine well into 00's but emission control killed any reason to modernize 'em.
Alfa Romeo won’t use Wankel because of the complexity and hight consumption of fuel who makes very difficoult to meet EU6 D Temp emission standards
Alfa won’t use a Wankel because, if you’ve watched the video, you’ll know they haven’t built one for over 50 years! 😆
@@Matteo_Licata true I am Alfista and I will not buy cars anymore because from now on all AR will be stupid and useless battery electric cars I only hope they can bankrupt before these vehicles will cross the production line BeV will mark the end of the motor industry worldwide
There's still word of Wankel engines being revived as electric range extenders, light, compact, powerful and in theory efficient at constant RPM.
Of course we're expecting big news from Mazda, but they despise electric cars to begin with.
It seems to me that battery technology is progressing fast enough that we’re already or near past the need for a range extender petrol engine of any kind. Mazda may not like EVs, but that’s what they’re going to make if they want to stay in business.
@@Matteo_Licata maybe Japan is really pushing for hydrogen though
Minchia. Vi immaginate un di sti wankel su un’Alfa di oggi…
😂😂😂😂😂
Rotary engines were total failure.
YES, they were awesome at being to able to put them behind front axle, and by being very light. They've brought excellent handling.
But the technical problems were never solved. You could buy RX-8 with 70,000 km's for like 10k EUR ... for a good reason.
Fuel consumption wasn't much higher. Emission regulations were just final nail in coffin ... like with Mazda's Miller cycle engines.