Product Code Database
Felix Heinrich Wankel (; 13 August 1902 – 9 October 1988) was a German mechanical engineer and inventor after whom the Wankel engine was named. Wankel joined various radical antisemitic organizations after World War I and was a prominent member of the Nazi Party.
Wankel was gifted since childhood with an ingenious spatial imagination and became interested in the world of machines, especially combustion engines. After his mother was widowed, Wankel could not afford university education or even an apprenticeship. He was, however, able to teach himself technical subjects. At age 17 he told friends that he had dreamt of constructing a car with "a new type of engine, half turbine, half reciprocating. It is my invention!". True to this prediction, he conceived the Wankel engine in 1924 and won his first patent in 1929.
In the meantime Wankel's mother, Gerty had helped founding the local chapter of the NSDAP in his hometown of Lahr. Here Wankel not only rejoined the party in 1926, but also met the local Gauleiter, i.e. regional head of the NSDAP party, Robert Heinrich Wagner. In 1931 Wagner entrusted Wankel with the leadership of the Hitler Youth in Baden. But they soon fell out with each other, because Wankel tried to put a stronger emphasis on military training, whereas Wagner wished for the Hitler Youth to be a primarily political organization. In a particularly bitter and ugly controversy Wankel publicly accused Wagner of corruption. Wagner retaliated by stripping Wankel of his office by early 1932 and managed to have him expelled from the party in October 1932.
Wankel, who sympathized with the social-revolutionary wing of the NSDAP with Gregor Strasser, then founded his own National Socialist splinter group in Lahr and continued his attacks on Wagner. Since the Nazis' seizure of power on 30 January 1933 had strengthened his position, Wagner had Wankel arrested and imprisoned in the Lahr jail in March 1933. Only by intervention of Hitler's economic adviser Wilhelm Keppler and Hitler himself, was Wankel set free in September 1933.Popplow, pp. 50–54 A fellow native of Baden and member of Reichstag from 1933 to 1945, Keppler had been a friend of Wankel and an ardent supporter of his technological endeavors since 1927. He now helped Wankel to get state contracts and his own Wankels Versuchs Werkstätten experimental workshop in Lindau.
Wankel tried to rejoin the NSDAP in 1937, but was turned down.Popplow, p. 72 With the help of Keppler, however, he was admitted to the Schutzstaffel in 1940 in the rank of Obersturmbannführer.Popplow, p. 64 Two years later his membership was revoked for unknown reasons.
On 19 January 1960 the rotary engine was presented for the first time to specialists and the press in a meeting of the German Engineers' Union at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. In the same year, with the KKM 250, the first practically applied rotary engine was presented in a converted NSU Prinz automobile. At around this time the term "Wankel engine" became synonymous with the rotary type of engine, whereas previously it was referred to as the "Motor nach System NSU/Wankel". At the 1963 IAA motor show in Frankfurt, the NSU company presented the NSU Wankel-Spider, the first consumer vehicle with a rotary engine, which went into production in 1964. Great attention was received by the NSU in August 1967 for the very modern NSU Ro 80 sedan, which had a 115-horsepower engine with two rotors. It was the first German car named "Car of the Year" in 1968.
In Japan, the manufacturer Mazda licensed the engine and successfully solved various problems relating to chatter marks.Yamamoto, Kenichi (1971). Rotary Engine. Toyo Kogyo. Page 60-61 The engine was used successfully by Mazda in several generations of their RX-series of coupés and sedans, including the Mazda Cosmo (1967), R100 (1968), the RX-7 (1978–2002), and the RX-8 (2003–2012). Mazda has planned to reintroduce the engine, albeit as a range extender, in their MX-30 R-EV in 2023. Mazda Rotary Engine Is Coming Back on an MX-30 Plug-In-Hybrid, Car and Driver, 9 January 2023. Mercedes-Benz fitted one of its C111 experimental models in 1969 with a three-rotor Wankel engine. In 1970, the next model had a four-rotor Wankel engine and could reach top speed 290 km/h but never reached production.
Wankel became a success in business by securing license agreements for the engine to manufacturers around the world. By 1958 Wankel and partners had founded the Wankel GmbH company, providing Wankel with a share of the profits for marketing the engine. Among the licensees were Daimler-Benz since 1961, General Motors since 1970, Toyota since 1971. Among those who paid higher fees for Wankel RCE rights was a state-owned engineering firm of the East Germany. Royalties received by Wankel's own company from licensing were 40% at first, which later dropped to 36%. In 1971 Wankel sold his share in licensing royalties for 50 million Deutschmarks (adjusted for inflation, approximately €87m in 2021) to the English conglomerate Lonmin. A year later he got his Technical Development Center back from the Fraunhofer Society research organization. From 1986 the Felix Wankel Institute entered cooperation agreement with Daimler Benz, which covered the institute's operating costs in return for research rights. Wankel later sold the institute to Daimler Benz for 100 million Deutschmarks.
In the context of the developed Wankel engine, "rotary" is something of a misnomer. The Wankel principle applied only to a "rotary piston" and not to the engine as a whole which was a stationary assembly, unlike rotary engines employed in WW1 aircraft in which the entire engine rotated about a fixed crankshaft.
He never had a driving license, because he was extremely near-sighted. He was, however, the owner of an NSU Ro 80 with a Wankel engine, which was chauffeur driven for him.
In 1969, Wankel was granted an honorary degree Doctorate of Engineering from Technical University Munich. He was known for his championing of animal rights and opposition to the use of animals in testing.
Wankel died in Heidelberg in October 1988, aged 86. His grave is in the Bergfriedhof of Heidelberg. After his death, the Felix Wankel Foundation sold its real estate property to Volkswagen AG. The Heidelberg Fire Department showcases his last workshop. Wankel's papers are archived in the Technoseum in Mannheim. Furthermore, there is an exhibition "AUTOVISION · Tradition & Forum" in Altlußheim, a permanent showing of over 80 rotary engines and many cars equipped with Wankel motors.
| Without restriction, no series |
| Industrial engine and boat, 0.5–30 PS |
| Gasoline and Diesel engine, 1–100 PS, 1–300 PS |
| Gasoline 1–200 PS land vehicles |
| Diesel engine without restriction |
| Gasoline 50 PS upwards |
| Diesel engine without restriction |
| Diesel engine without restriction |
| Diesel engine without restriction |
| Gasoline engine 50–300 PS or Passenger car |
| Diesel and hybrid engines 100–850 Ps |
| Gasoline engine 0.5–25 PS and 50–150 PS |
| Gasoline engine 50–1000 Ps |
| Gasoline engine 50–400 Ps |
| Gasoline and Diesel engine 40–200 PS |
| 0,1–3 PS model engines |
| Gasoline 0.5–30 PS industrial engines |
| Gasoline engines 80–120 Ps |
| Everything, except aircraft engines |
| Gasoline engines 20–60 PS for motorcycle |
| Gasoline engines 75–150 PS |
| Gasoline engines 80–200 PS (1974 quit) |
| Gasoline engines 35–60 PS for motorcycle |
| Gasoline engines 20–80 PS for motorcycle |
| Gasoline engines 20–80 PS for motorcycle |
| Gasoline engines 20–200 PS |
|
|
