History originally published in AutoWeek June 4, 1984 A little-known chapter in American automotive history began in 1958 in a small white building on the Wood-Ridge, New Jersey, grounds of Curtiss-Wright, the aeronautical firm with roots dating back to the air pioneers of America. In that building, Dr. Max Bentele and Charles Jones made America’s […]
Mazda Cosmo Sport: RX-7’s honorable ancestor
History originally published in AutoWeek May 7, 1984 The thrill was back, they told us, and how right they were. Emissions controls, beginning in the 1968 model year, had gradually turned most new cars into performance eunuchs. But Mazda was different, and the power of its Wankel engine made the phrase “rotary rocket” part of […]
NSU Ro80: A Car Ahead of its Time
History originally published in AutoWeek March 12, 1984 How very frustrating, how maddeningly, fist-clinching frustrating it must have been to the men who were NSU to look back upon the Ro 80 and realize how close the car and the company came to forming a successful vanguard of automotive technology. To be sure, the company […]
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