Rotary Motorcycles

Felix Wankel built the first working rotary internal combustion engine in 1957. The engine first appeared in the German NSU spider in 1964. During the late 1960's and early 1970's a lot of people thought rotaries were the way of the future. Wankel rotaries were designed for airplanes, cars, snowmobiles, and yes motorcycles. The first motorcycle to get this revolutionary powerplant was the Hurcules W2000 in 1974.

The W in W2000 was for Wankel. Followed shortly after the Hurcules was the Suzki RE5 in late 1974. Suzuki at the time was producing primarily small two stroke motorcycles. Honda and Kawasaki began shifting twoards large displacement four stroke street bikes, and Suzuki had nothing to offer. So what did Suzuki do? They came out with a large displacement two stroke and a rotary powered bike. Like most rotary powered vehicles the RE5 was very smooth and capable of high RPM's. The RE5 however produced a lot of heat and was prone to overheating. Combine this with the lack of demand for a rotary motorcycle and the RE5 only lasted three years (1974-1976). One has to wonder if bikes like this discourage Japanese companies like Suzuki from tring new designs.

Yamaha also had a rotary ready called the RZ201. After witnessing the failure of the RE5, however, they axed the program after a prototype was displayed in 1975.

The last manufacturer to play with rotaries was Norton. Norton's rotary development started back in 1969 when the English motorcycle industry was on its way to extinction. Norton decided to take a chance with rotaries and a working prototype was produced in 1977. Norton began selling selling these machines to law enforcement agencies in the early 1980's as the Interpol II.

Norton produced 100 civilian motorcycles in the late 1980's, all of which were quickly snatched up by collectors. A liquid cooled fully-faired model called the Commander was offered afterwards.

Perhaps the most interesting Norton rotary was the F1 racer. Norton's racing rotaries did rack up a few victories, including the Isle of Man TT and the British Supercup series. Early models had issues with heat build up from the air cooled engine, later models fixed the probelm but it was too late for Norton. The company finally went belly up and only 66 F1's were ever produced.