Warning! Long, sentimental story....
I still have an Ro80 in my grandmother's garage in germany.
It's a '66 or '68 (I don't remember - it's been years since
I drove it)
It had the typical early Wankel problem: Apex seals shot.
The fun part is that this Apex seal issue was more of a legend,
as my car proves. Since the design was so new, NSU wanted
to quickly get out the bugs by replacing the entire engine in case
whatever went wrong and give the customer a new one free of charge.
They would then investigate the engine they replaced.
That however caused the mechanics to get lazy,
whenever a car came in with a problem, they were quick in
diagnosing: Apex seals. New engine. Even when all the car
needed was an oil change.
Problem was - the reputation of the car was shot.
I received my car as a gift from my dad when I was 16
(driving age in germany has always been 18) - as his
garage told him the engine is shot and he couldn't afford
to have it repaired (that was after the free replacement period
sometime in the early 80's) he neither could afford a birthday
gift for me - thus he gave me his car.
The symptom the car showed was when started in the
morning it would act as a fog-machine or 2 or so minutes
until the entire neighborhood was covered in a blueish cast.
The garage said: Apex seals shot, oil gathers in the
lower section of the pentachroid (or whatever) and when the
car starts it gets burned - thus the smoke.
Didn't seem logical to me - an amount of oil that would produce
so much smoke would certainly stop the engine
from firing after the first revolution when it has messed up the plugs,
therefore with that explanation the car shouldn't start at all.
Anyways - when I turned 18 I worked through the summer, got some
money in my hands and took the car to a guy I found through
what is now replaced by the internet (human network). He listened
to my story and said: bullshit - different problem. We tow-started
the car, the evening news talked about an alien attack (or the russians)
but the Ro80 (18 years old, just like me) ran just fine.
After a couple of hundred miles the brakes stopped working, I drove
home with only the hand-brake. There was the problem:
Master cylinder leaked, brake fluid gathered in the vacuum assist
chamber, got sucked into engine and burned.
A night or so worth of brake fluid made for a nice little reserve
of blue-smoke mix that was used up during the first 2-3 minutes
in the morning.
My Ro80 is Ferrari red, 115 horsepower, 60000 miles
with original engine. Top speed I got
was a hair below 200km/h. Very good handling. (Not for autox
though, my dad took me to an autox once to watch, I asked
why he doesn't participate - his car whould beat them all, but he said,
no, all the 2002, NSU TT, Fiat sport would beat his boat)
Very disappointing for an eight year old.
Now, as a 34 year I finally found the proper complement:
A Ferrari red '93 RX-7 -- good for Autobahn and autox,
yeah baby!
Cotterep@aol.com wrote:
> I noticed someone just mention the Ro80. I had the pleasure of driving one
> from Dublin (the real one !) to Galway in 1970 and for that era it was a
> great car with beautiful wedge shaped styling. It had a semi automatic
> transmission similar to a sequential system and was very quick and smooth. It
> was manufactured by NSU, who also made the NSU TT, after which the present
> Audi TT was named. The NSU TT was a 998 c.c. small rear engined saloon
> similar in style to a BMW 2002 and was very succesful in its class in
> motorsport in Europe. The company sold the patent for the rotary engine to
> Mazda and were subsequently swallowed by Porsche/Audi.
>
> Eamon
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