This article is about NSU, famous for their late 1960s Wankel engined saloons. NSU were one of the original German manufacturers. They were founded in 1873 as a factory making sewing machines. Several European manufacturers like Triumph started out making sewing machines before moving on to other types of machinery. The founders Heinrich Stoll and Christian Schmidt saw that … [Read more...]
NSU
Transaxles
A transaxle is the combination of a differential and gearbox in one unit. What this does is to reduce the packaging of the components into one unit rather than two. So in effect it is a transmission axle or "transaxle". In a traditional rear drive car, the engine is at the front with the gearbox connected at the rear of the block converting the power delivery through a prop … [Read more...]
The aftermath of the VW Scandal
So it is not long ago that the world was up in arms about VW and its ability to deliver emissions control test results that the authorities wanted. The scandal was embellished by the outrage of the media when they found out that VWs engineers had developed software that could detect if a vehicle was being tested and then reconfigure the engine management system to ensure that … [Read more...]
Max Hoffman
I enjoy reading classic car magazines from Europe and the US and one name seems to appear in every edition - Maximilian Hoffman! Who was he and why was he such an important figure in the automotive industry? By the way don’t confuse him with his namesake who was a World War 1 military strategist who helped defeat Russian advances in 1917 - a pivotal reason for the Russian … [Read more...]
Boxer & Flat Engines
Like the W formation engine discussed recently, the flat engine has been around since the very early years, in fact Karl Benz used a boxer engine in his first car! There is actually a subtle difference between a flat engine and a boxer engine: both are flat however a boxer engine uses horizontally opposed cylinders where the corresponding pistons on each side reach top dead … [Read more...]