1969 Mercedes-Benz C111 concept car - photo

[Frank S]

It's a crying shame that the Wankel engine couldn't have been made to be more efficient in fuel conservation with cleaner emissions. The horsepower to weight ratio was phenomenal, its compact design with so few moving parts was a huge advantage from a manufacturing and assembly standpoint, but the criticality of the precision machining and difficulty of making long lasting rotor sealing components was a huge problem. many manufactures dabbled with designing it into their products not just in the automotive industry, with often time poor successes. John Deere in the early 1980s licensed it to use in powering generators I remember an Oil and Gas trade show there was a display of 30 Kw and, 300 KW generators made by John Deere on display in Gasoline, Natural gas and diesel versions.