40 YEARS OF HMMMMMMM; Mazda celebrates its four decades of rotary power.(News)

Byline: MARK VAUGHN

Felix Wankel was a dreamer. Specifically, in 1919, at age 17, he dreamed that he invented an engine. While it took him 38 more years to produce a working rotary powerplant and still more to perfect it for production, the Mazda faithful are still living the dream today.

Wankel's first working rotary went into an NSU 50-cc motorcycle. It worked so well NSU claimed a world speed record of almost 120 mph with it.

An agreement in 1961 allowed Mazda to develop a rotary based on Wankel's ideas. After working out technical problems in the early prototypes, including unusual wearing on the rotor walls and rough performance at low engine speeds, Mazda launched its first rotary-powered car, the Cosmo Sport, in 1967. That makes this year the 40th anniversary of the Mazda rotary engine.

To celebrate, we first got a 2007 RX-8 and drove it from Los Angeles to Carmel and back. With the RX-8 in 2003, Mazda introduced the Renesis rotary, with intake and exhaust ports moved to the side for better combustion and cleaner exhaust. Ours had 232 hp and 159 lb-ft of torque. The best part of the whole car was its perfect 50/50 weight balance in a superbly tuned chassis, making it perfect for hundreds of miles of curvy roads. While naysayers claim the rotary has no torque, we never really wanted for more the whole time, staying in third gear through many a turn that would have had a last-generation RX-7 looking for second. It did get appalling gas mileage, somewhere around 15 mpg or so, ...