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

In theory, Wankel-style rotary internal combustion engines have many advantages: they ditch the cumbersome crankcase and piston design, replacing it with a simple, single-chamber design and a thick, ...

The internal combustion engine, for all its mechanical sophistication, still runs on a 19th-century mechanical idea: pistons ...

Over-the-top rotary builds are an enthusiast tradition. Because so few rotary cars have been made, the limits of the engine type haven't been fully exploited by automakers. It's been tuners who have ...

The Mazda RX-8 has always had a cult following, but the rotary engine can scare off buyers who want something simpler to live ...

Gilbert Smith is an automotive journalist with over five years of specialized research and writing experience. Before joining CarBuzz in 2024, he produced in-depth buyer’s guides and feature articles ...

Designed and championed by self-taught engineer Felix Wankel, the rotary engine is now most closely associated with Japanese automaker Mazda. Many of the greatest Mazdas ever made, including the RX-7 ...

Sure, the rotary engine may be an oil-eating machine filled with Nazi-designed spinning tortilla chips that turn money into nightmares, but god, I love them. My first car was an RX-7, and while, ...

We live in an age of downsizing in the automotive world. Super and hypercar manufacturers like McLaren and Ferrari are ditching big-capacity, high-cylinder count engines in favor of boosted V6 and V8 ...

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.