Holy crap, I’ve almost gone a whole week for a daily feature! I’m normally terrible about recurring things like this, so let’s see if I can keep it going. The daily feature is, of course, where I get an old computer to pick a random page in the 2005 book, The World’s Worst Cars, written by Craig Cheetham, and then I do my best to redeem whatever car was being lambasted on that page. I do this because I firmly believe that this “worst car” book, along with so many other “worst car” listicles and articles and testicles are fundamentally just lists of interesting cars, not worst cars. So, with that out of the way, let’s fire up the Commodore PET and pick a random page!
By the way, I know that these old computers can only really pick pseudorandom numbers, and while I think its good enough for our purposes, the first two random numbers that the PET spat out today were repeats! Huh. That’s weird. But I guess it can happen, because, you know, randomness.
Anyway, let’s see what we get today:
Page 175! Fantastic. What do we have on page 175?
Holy shit, it’s the NSU Ro80! Sure, the Ro80 was a deeply flawed car, no question, but it is also a legitimate motoring icon! The Ro80 is a design masterpiece and a technological pioneer! It has no business being in a book called The World’s Worst Cars – would you put Nikolai Tesla in a book called The World’s Worst People just because he was weirdly obsessed with the number three and refused to talk to women wearing pearls? No, of course you wouldn’t! So why should the Ro80 be sentenced to be committed to this vile tome just because it (checks notes) had an engine that routinely failed after about 15,000 miles?
Really, you have to think of the Ro80’s twin-rotor Wankel engine as an Achilles’ heel as opposed to something by which you would condemn the whole car. Because the whole car was just too damn good.
NSU was an interesting company; they were mostly known as a maker of motorcycles and clever rear-engined little economy cars like the NSU Prinz. They became enamored with Wankel rotary engines in the late 1950s, and by 1963 they introduced the world’s first rotary-engined production car, the NSU Wankel Spider.
Wankel engines are beguiling things for companies that seem to genuinely love engineering, like NSU: they make incredible amounts of power from relatively low displacements, they have very few moving parts, they’re incredibly smooth, and they’re just weird and cool. They also are incredibly thirsty for fuel and consume some crucial parts, like apex seals, to the point where their longevity is, well, tragic.
The NSU Ro80, built from 1967 to 1977, was the world’s first twin-rotor production sedan, and even if we accept that its rotary engine (which made 113 horsepower from just 995cc, still impressive today) was flawed, everything around that engine was just magnificent. The body design, by Claus Luthe, who would later go on to BMW and define their design vocabulary in the 1980s and 1990s, was a masterpiece of aerodynamics (a drag coefficient of 0.355) and looked so clean and sleek and modern that it could be still fresh today.
In fact, while I was at the Other Site, I did a mockup of just that, adapting the Ro80 with plastic bumpers and modern lighting to see how it would look as a modern car, and I think it works:
The Ro80 I believe is a legitimate automotive design icon. It was also considered a fabulous car to drive, with race car-like inboard brakes, and the steering seems to have received some of the most effusive praise I’ve ever read; look at this quote from the magazine CAR in 1973:
“We doubt whether we have yet met a power steering setup the equal of the Ro80’s. There is no apparent delay in response…the car simply goes where you aim it, reacts instantly to steering wheel movement, and cooperates to the hilt when one is thrashing along a self-imposed special stage.”
That’s high praise! When these things ran, people adored them. They were fast Autobahn cruisers, comfortable and rewarding to drive, roomy on the inside, not too big on the outside, just an all-around fantastic machine.
Well, except for that engine. On the plus side, though, NSU was very generous with their engine warranty policy, replacing engines in customer cars multiple times; I’ve even heard that Ro80 owners, when passing one another on the road, would hold up a number of fingers that was equal to the number of engine replacements they’ve had as a form of greeting.
I think even Craig Cheetham himself knows the Ro80 really doesn’t belong in this book; he notes that it was “stunningly styled, incredibly comfortable, and fast,” which sure feels like a bit of guilty backtracking, because deep down, Craig knows that the Ro80 doesn’t belong in this book.
Yes, it’s flawed. But it’s also incredible. That combination in no way equals “worst” of anything. Therefore, I now demand that everyone grab their copy of The World’s Worst Cars and tear out page 175.
Thank you.
…by 1963 they introduced the world’s first rotary-engined production car, the NSU Wankel Spider…
Coincidentally, also #7 in the book “Worst Named Collegiate Mascots.”
I have this book and there are several otherwise good cars in there included because they have a single, pretty glaring fault.
Spoiler Alert: There is a birotor Citroen GS in there. There are several cars in there included because they are rustbuckets.
I love GS birotors!
When they’re working.
We had two piston engined GSs when I was a kid, great cars. Then my dad got a CX Safari. I don’t think he’d have traded some smoothness for continual engine replacements.
I feel like “Wankel Spider” (or, the term being German, potentially subject to being hyphenated or even combined into one word as “Wankel-spider” or “Wankelspider”…) is a term that would make non-Germans either giggle or cringe without even being sure exactly why…
It sounds like a mythical monster that punishes those who self pleasure.
So obviously I find it terrifying.
I would love to have one of these retrofitted with a 13B rotary.
Any car that was delivered with an a very fragile engine should be in the worlds worst cars book. Full Stop.
Now, with that in mind, inclusion on that list does not mean that such a car was not beloved.
The bigger issue with the Wankel is the apex seal problem. Even with modern alloys and tight tolerances, we can make the engines more reliable, but this part of the engine will ALWAYS be its Achilles’ heel.
In the case of the RO80, it does seem like quite the fantastic automobile, when you have a working powerplant.
I’d say a power plant that doesn’t work relatively consistently (even with decent other attributes) earns itself on a list of worst cars.
If it doesn’t run it’s barely a car.
This is now my favourite recurring feature on this site.
God bless Thee, Torch.
2nd!
I have a couple of the other “worst car” books, if I can find them I want to send them to Torch so he can extend the series.
Great idea!
The HN german license plates on the press shots are from Heilbronn: Somehow that sounds really german 😉
One of my design idols, Erik Spiekermann, has one of these wonderful cars.
The NSU Ro80 is one of the most comfortable and enjoyable classic sedans I’ve ever driven. A truly special and clever car that was way ahead of its time. Somewhat rushed, thus ultimately doomed.
“Wankel Spider” well, that’s tonight’s nightmare theme sorted, thanks.
I love the Wankel engine, the one I owned was one of my absolute favourites. But an engine that only lasts 15,000 miles before catastrophic failure is a bad engine. A car without an engine is a bad car.
They must have known how fragile the engine was during prototype validation, but went in to production anyway. This is a car that should never have been sold with this engine.
Had it been sold with a 2.0 slant straight six or something as well then the wankel version would have been the worst car.
It’s a brave and lovable failure.
I don’t think a slant 6 would have fit in that engine bay, let alone result in an acceptable weight distribution. I think a much better fit would’ve been something like the DKW 3-cylinder 2-stroke, though that was a bit outdated by then.
LS swap?
I’M KIDDING geez
You can’t replace a wankel with a crude unbalanced piston engine, so it’s got to be at least a straight six. I don’t care if the front three cylinders stick out of the front.
That’s a fair point, the DKW unit was probably quite raucous.
True, but I imagine it also has its bad points.
My understanding is that the standard (well, “standard”) replacement swap is the Taunus V4. I guess if you’re going with a crude, unbalanced piston engine, why stop halfway?
If we’re going to compare a rotary by displacement to a piston engine, then we need to take into account that a four stroke piston engine displacement wastes half of the displacement into the exhaust stroke. So a 1.3l rotary should be compared to a 2.6l four stroke engine. But I’d rather compare the power output as a function of fuel consumed (air would be preferable but it’s harder to measure).
I think the air an engine attempts to consume is a pretty good measure, as it’s the direct swept displacement. My go-to is displacement per chamber times the amount of power strokes every 2 revolutions. It shows us that a rotary has twice as many power strokes despite having 3 times as many chambers. That third chamber may
Your comparison to a 2.6L is dead-on, but it’s important to note that would be a 2.6L inline 4.
This makes the FC RX-7 a near-perfect comparison against the Porsche 944 2.5L inline-4, quite appropriate given that’s the car it was created to imitate and defeat. They get very similar MPG, the 944 develops a bit more power and a decent chunk more torque, but its engine is noticeably heavier, enough so that it ended up with identical weight distribution despite a rear-mounted transaxle. Surprisingly, both get very similar real-world fuel economy, according to owner’s forums. 17-18 city and 25-27 highway (broad ranges due to broad spread of driving habits).
I think the fair comparison is to put a 1.3 Wankel up against a 2.6 inline 4 in all metrics, power and economy come out pretty close, then concede the loss of torque as a trade-off for the substantial difference in weight and external dimensions.
It’s a great race engine, because power-to-weight is amazing, as is high-load thermal efficiency, and short rebuild intervals are acceptable in motorsport. Sadly, supercars are heritage-based things and need a V8. 10 or 12 to sell, so they miss out on that market segment, where the delicate rotary engines would make more sense as maintenance costs are deemed an acceptable trade-off for performance.
The straight on front view of the Ro80 is to me one of the most beautiful views you can get of any car. Insane to imagine this design came out in the late 60s. I think in such a risk averse industry, companies should be appreciated more for trying out stuff. It didn’t work out with NSU but they tried to make things right and at the end the engines were allegedly much improved, but the reputational damage was already done and the fuel crisis didn’t help.
When a car requires a specific extra care to keep going it is deemed unreliable, as people treat it as other cars they’ve had, not changing oil when they need to and revving the guts out of it when cold.
This car belongs in this book. It was super influential and forward thinking vehicle and definitely a shism point for an alternative timeline where GM’s extensive dalliance with rotary engines in the 1970s leads to production cars featuring them en masse today, but pushing out a car whose drivetrain issues are so horrific that they bankrupt the entire company sounds like a pretty bad car to me.
The Ro 80 is objectively better than the Citroën GS Birotor that was failure prone they bought back all the cars they sold, and Michelin divested Citroën and Berliet to Peugeot and Renault respectively.
Well, the GS did have an even cooler design, lower weight, and that wonderful suspension. But they rusted faster, and if the engine was as bad as in the NSU, I can agree to call it a draw 😉
I owned one with the “regular” aircooled flat four some years ago: It drove and sounded like a bad quality Porsche station wagon 😀
“I’ve even heard that Ro80 owners, when passing one another on the road, would hold up a number of fingers that was equal to the number of engine replacements they’ve had as a form of greeting.”
The fact that this seems plausible is enough for this car to earn a place in this book. It is a nice looking car and it is presumably fun to drive, but a self-destructing engine seems like a fatal flaw. I disagree with a lot of entries in this book, but not this one. Page 175 will remain in my copy of this book.
That sounds like a riff on the stock comeback when someone gives you the finger:
“What, is that your IQ?” “I didn’t know you could count that high!”
So I’m thinking it was probably a joke by an owner or friend that got telephone’d into an urban legend.
“I’ve even heard that Ro80 owners, when passing one another on the road, would hold up a number of fingers that was equal to the number of engine replacements they’ve had as a form of greeting.”
The Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, TN has a NSU Ro80; once when I went on a tour of the basement the guide (David Yates, a board member) talked about that particular type of greeting and told of a legendary account of one R080 owner holding up nine fingers. Egad.
Some Ro80 owners, after the warranty had expired, would replace the Wankel rotary engines with V4 engines from Ford (as used in the Taunus and other European models) since those would fit easily under the low sloping hood but the unfortunate result was described by automotive journalists at the time as being especially ironic in that the world’s smoothest running engine had been replaced by the world’s roughest running engine.
Nowadays the technology has improved for Wankel engines so some Ro80 owners are able to refurbish their Wankel engines though some have had success with using Subaru flat-four engines.
(I think you mean David Yando)
D’oh! Yeah, you’re right. My apologies to Mr. Yando. Thought something didn’t seem right when I posted the comment but after double-checking for typos I figured all was good. Yeah, gotta check names, it’s not just about typos. A bit late now to edit my comment, geez.
Haven’t seen an update from the Lane in a long time. That was an interesting series of articles, can we start it up again?
I saw a very nice Ro 80 displayed at Monterey Car Week a couple of years ago. The owner claimed that modern apex seals are reliable for 30K miles, not too difficult to change, and readily available from sources in the Netherlands.
The Ro 80 transmission is also interesting: a semi-automatic with an electro-vacuum clutch plus a torque converter – no potential failure points there!
I believe the apex seal thing actually. Allegedly Mazda’s real breakthrough in rotary engines was the discovery that NSU’s premature apex seal wear was caused by a resonant chattering, and that grinding two shallow scoops out of the back of the apex seal disrupts that chattering and allows the seal to live several times longer. It seems believable to me that retrofitting an Ro80 with scooped apex seals would make it last just as long as a Mazda rotary.
That’s the VW Automatic Stickshift, a manual with a vacuum operated clutch and torque converter. They were petty reliable in the Beetle.
I’ve never seen an Ro80 in person, but I’ve always liked how they look. And the rotary engine is a big plus.
I’m hazy on the details, but as I understand it, the Ro80 was such a fine car to drive, that at least one Volkswagen higher up ran one as a company car from the end of production in 1977 until the late 80’s, with a succession of hotter rotary engines, until he finally retired.
Driving down Seattle’s Lake City Way one night in 1998 or 1999, I saw one on a used car lot. I recognized the model from childhood in Europe, specifically a neighbor’s orange Ro80 trailing blue smoke in the mid-1970s.
Next day at the car lot, the starter cranks quickly but the engine does not start. The salesperson said it often needed a second battery to start from cold. One was connected and I couldn’t hear the difference but sufficient compression was achieved and it started. The car was green, with faint lines of rust starting to show from door and fender skin folded edges. The engine and torque converter were as smooth as expected. The surprises were lack of knee room
in the back seat, like the first Audi A4, and the ride comfort. It rode like a Renault 16, with plenty of wheel travel, soft springs, and well judged damping — and steering precision didn’t suffer for it. It also leaned like a Renault 16 in a movie police chase.
I did not buy it. The motor wasn’t the problem; no doubt Ro80 specialists knew by then how to make it acceptably durable. But rust staring to faintly appear on bodywork edges everywhere seemed like a large project to fix properly, and I was also a purist then who distrusted camber change over bumps as a way to lose grip suddenly if cornering hard over bumps. So the Ro80’s MacPherson struts and semi trailing arms did not appeal.
I hope the green Seattle Ro80 hums happily for someone else now.
One person here in Seattle has owned (still owns?) a green 1970 US-market Ro80 from 1975 to at least 2012, as documented here in both the article and the comments:
https://ateupwithmotor.com/model-histories/nsu-ro80-history/view-all/
but I’ve never seen it or any others around town.
Sometime around 2000 I tried to buy that very car!! I can’t remember what the dealer wanted for it but it was more the I was willing to pay. I spent 2 months trying to bring the price down but got nowhere. I think it was more run down when I saw it as I was certain the transmission would need replaced. My back of the envelope plan was to replace the whole drivetrain with a Mazda 13B and a Subaru transmission. It was so special and interesting that I still remember it as a car that got away.
Worst worst car book ever! Does it even mention the 1983 Malibu I was assigned as a company car? If it does, shame on Cheetham for putting the ro80 on the same list. If it doesn’t, it proves he doesn’t know anything about shitty cars.
Sit on it and rotate, Cheetham.
Yes, this is a bad car, because it wasn’t reliable enough to get a driver, and perhaps some passengers and a bit of cargo, to a destination.
Had it shipped with a 100hp piston engine, it might have been a good car, but that’s not how they sold it.
Bad car.
Bad car, but worst?
Car doesn’t drive every 15K miles makes it worst.
Bad=/=worst
i have no opinion on the Ru80, but are we really going to cavil about the definition of the term “worst” in a set of 365 “worsts”? (or however many the author lasts for)
there may truly be more “worsts” than “holy grails”.
This one is tough. While I agree that everything else was going for it. The fact that some owners would go through multiple engines really does equal a bad car. It’s a shame that the problems couldn’t be worked out.
I feel like a car that can not reliably move is not a good car.
It doesn’t matter how perfect the steering is, or how advanced the brakes are. If your engine is broken, they don’t really matter*
*Beyond the initial potential Code Brown.
There’s at least an argument to be made that a car with enough issues to take down a company is notably bad, and the Ro80 is a big part of the reason NSU got absorbed into Audi, right?
I still want one, though.
Technically, both Auto Union and NSU were purchased by Volkswagen, which then combined the two.