Cutaway illustration of GM’s experimental two-rotor Wankel engine, featured on the cover of  Popular Science in May 1972. In the early 1970s, Detroit dreamed of reinvention. Factories were roaring, car design was daring, and engineers believed technology could solve anything. At the center of that optimism stood General Motors, preparing to replace the heart of the automobile itself. For a brief moment, GM believed the rotary engine would dethrone the piston. Compact, smooth,

Lancia stand at the Paris Motor Show at the beginning of October 1922 A century ago, one car rewrote the rules. When the Lancia Lambda  debuted at the 1922 Paris Motor Show, it looked elegant, but what lay beneath made it revolutionary. Built in Turin, Italy, the Lambda was the world’s first production unibody car, the first with independent front suspension, and among the earliest touring cars with four-wheel brakes. It handled better, stopped faster, and rode more smoothly

The Tampa Bay Automobile Museum has officially added its first motorcycle and it’s no ordinary bike. The 1989 Norton Commander , powered by a 588 cc Wankel rotary engine, represents a daring engineering experiment in motorcycle history. Unlike traditional piston engines, the Wankel rotary uses spinning triangular rotors instead of reciprocating pistons, producing power in a smooth, continuous motion. The result is a compact, lightweight engine with an uncanny turbine-like fee