Felix Wankel, 86; Inventor of the Rotary Engine

Felix Wankel, the inventor who never finished high school, never had a driver’s license and yet invented the rotary automobile engine, has died in his native country, friends of the motor designer said Thursday.

Wankel died on Sunday at age 86.

Wankel began work on a rotary engine in 1926, culminating with production of the new-design motor at the West German NSU Motor Works in 1957.

Although his father, killed in World War I, left the family a handsome inheritance, postwar inflation ate into it and Wankel was collecting unemployment benefits when he bought four used machine tools and began manufacturing engine equipment. He developed the rotary test engine while working with Bavarian Motor Works and over the years earned millions of dollars.

The NSU Spider was the first car to be mass-produced with the Wankel rotary engine in 1964. The now-defunct NSU company also produced the RO 80 Wankel rotary engine car, which had a reputation for unreliability and was discontinued in 1977.

There was much interest in Wankel’s rotary engine in the 1960s and early 1970s. According to West German automobile industry figures, in 1971 Wankel was working with 24 different companies around the world on plans to further develop his engine.

But the first oil crisis of 1973-74 changed all that, bringing a drastic loss of interest in investing in the automobile industry, experts say.

Mazda continued work on developing the Wankel rotary engine and made the concept a successful one.