Yesterday was an ordinary working Wednesday for many of us, like the last one and the one before that. However, our editors still found a reason for remembrance and a small celebration in the form of a short article about the NSU Ro 80 car, to which the big plans and visions of the NSU car company were attached. Yesterday it was exactly 45 years since this model was supposed to light up car shows with its design and technology.
I'll start right away with the most interesting, so I won't bore you for a long time. The NSU Ro 80 was the first car to have a Wankel rotary engine under the hood. Felix Wankel developed his engine for the NSU car company already in the 1950s, when he presented its first prototype in 1957, but its more reliable version with a satisfactory service life did not begin to be assembled until 13 years later. At first glance, the two-chamber rotary engine with a capacity of 2x 497.5 cc 3 had a lot of advantages thanks to its design. It did not have valves, camshafts, connecting rods and even a crankshaft. On the other hand, these engines had problems with the tightness of the individual chambers, because the edges of the rotary piston wore down considerably with operation. When everything was working, the rev-hungry engine produced 115 horsepower, with which the car reached a speed of 180 km/h. Engine power was transmitted to the front wheels using a three-speed semi-automatic transmission. The 4.7 meter long and 1210 kg Ro 80 accelerated from 0-100 in 14.4 seconds . However, these performance characteristics took their toll in the form of higher consumption ( 14.2 l/100 km ), which was not much in demand during the oil crises.
In addition to shock absorbers, contact with the road and good driving characteristics were ensured by the independent suspension of both axles , disc brakes mounted on all four wheels and rack-and-pinion steering with power steering, which was a real luxury at the time. This NSU was so timeless.
For timelessness, we will stay within the description of the exterior. The beautiful body carried interesting lines designed by the designer Klaus Luth , which were completely modern even twenty years later. For technically minded readers, I'll supply a drag value of 0.355. No wonder the NSU Ro 80 became the car of the year in 1968 as the first car produced in Germany. When did it start to go bad?
The stumbling block was the currently assembled Wankel engine and its necessary specific approach on the part of mechanics who were just learning to work with it. There were numerous complaints from customers when the engine did not even last a few tens of thousands of kilometers. This was a fact that fundamentally influenced the reputation of the NSU car company as a manufacturer of unreliable cars with a subsequently low market value. The mechanics were able to adjust the engines so that they could last more than 100,000 km, but that did not save the Ro 80 model or the NSU car company.
We were thus left with a rare heritage and legacy in the form of a beautiful vintage car with timeless technology and a unique engine, of which around 37,000 units were sold . The automaker's factory in Neckarsulm, now owned by Audi , still stands today and still functions as the headquarters of the factory tuners of the Quattro GmbH division . The Ro 80 model was not reliable or economical, but it was beautiful, timeless and different, which is exactly why we like it in the editorial office .
