Mazda Built a Three-Rotor Luxury Car and Almost Nobody Knew

Mazda built a three-rotor luxury car using the Wankel rotary engine, a concept few expected to survive long after other automakers moved on. The article revisits how the rotary works—its rotor runs on an eccentric shaft and completes intake, compression, ignition, and exhaust cycles—contrasting it with piston engines. Invented in the 1950s by German engineer Felix Wankel, the design entered production first with the NSU Spider in 1964, followed by Mazda’s 1967 Mazda Cosmo. Other manufacturers experimented as well, including Citroën with a two-rotor GS and concept efforts such as Mercedes C111, along with rotary-linked development work from General Motors. Many programs faded due to reliability and efficiency challenges, and NSU collapsed after severe issues with its Ro 80. Yet Mazda continued developing rotaries despite the broader industry shift away from them, keeping the Wankel alive into a period when regulations and durability became key hurdles.