As a matter of fact no, but only because the rest of the automotive world has largely caught up. My last two cars were Japanese and I loved the experience.

This is why I love our C-Max Energi. Only 20 miles of all-electric range, which isn’t a lot, but it’s all I need the vast majority of the time. Once we go beyond that, we’re still getting great mileage and the range on gas is fantastic.

“never been a fan of the boring family car and the associated easy life they bring,”

There are two kinds of engines that have been called rotary.  The Wankel rotary like in the RX7 and the Gnome rotary (a spinning radial engine) like in some early aircraft.

Correct, but Verdel himself was involved with Gnome et Rhone, which is what I was talking about, rather than any physical relation between the engines:

Kind of, although in spirit I would say a flat twin is closer, since the cylinders are evenly spaced about the crank.  

Radial is like the old airplane engines with the cylinders in-plane in a circle.

Nice find!  Interestingly seems to be related to the Gnome rotary radial.

That just gets more bizarre the more you read/think about it. No clutch, so at a red light you drive in little circles or just kill it. The sport version got up to 88... that makes me wonder how drivable it was at low speeds. Bumpy corners had to be hell with that much unsprung weight. And I’m guessing it felt really…

You are more correct than I was.  I tip my pedantic cap to you.

Yes, saw those.  Only customs, though, as far as I can tell.

Surprise!

I’ll be damned.  I mean, technically that’s not a radial, it’s the other kind of rotary, but I thought that was even more of a long-shot than a radial.

Of all of the major engine configurations I can think of off the top of my currently-scotch-addled brain, the only one I can’t recall appearing in a *production* motorcycle is the radial.

Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree, but I think we’ve seen plenty of examples where the price of gas has changed the direction of the car market very effectively, while attacking the vehicles directly has proven vulnerable to carve-outs, loopholes, etc.

Saw the gearing discussion, but missed the horsepower.  Should have paid closer attention.  Story of my life.

FWIW I ran some numbers that he didn’t cover, which is the horsepower and drag. I thought it might be another nail in the coffin, but it looks like the car has the juice to do it with the proper gearing.

And the way to get a good supply of inexpensive used economical cars in the future is to incentivise the new car market to purchase a bunch of new ones now.

There are a lot of used economy cars out there. I just bought a fantastic 5 year old plug in hybrid for $11K. Hatchback with 5 seats, great utility, and 550+ mile range on 14 gallons. You can get an early volt for like $6,000. Economical all-gas options like the Fit are even cheaper. If, as I suggested, we start with…

far better to apply incentives (and disincentives) to automakers and let them change their offerings to compensate