The Car That Was Too Advanced for Its Own Good

In 1967, the NSU Ro 80 looked like the future. It had a revolutionary rotary engine, front-wheel drive, four-wheel disc brakes, advanced aerodynamics and styling that seemed years ahead of most European saloons. It even won European Car of the Year. And then things started to go wrong. In this episode of Forgotten Motoring, we explore the strange rise and fall of the NSU Ro 80 — one of the most ambitious German cars ever built. We look at how NSU placed a huge bet on the Wankel rotary engine, why early reliability problems destroyed customer confidence, how apex seal failures became infamous, and why fixing the engineering problem was not enough to repair the car’s reputation. We also explore the financial pressure behind NSU’s merger with Auto Union, the oil crisis that made the Ro 80’s fuel consumption even harder to justify, and the strange legacy of a car that failed commercially while still predicting much of what modern European saloons would later become. Was the NSU Ro 80 a failure? Or was it simply too advanced, too ambitious and too early? Forgotten Motoring explores the forgotten cars, vanished manufacturers, strange engineering and extraordinary decisions that shaped European motoring. The cars Europe forgot. The stories worth remembering. #NSURo80 #Wankel #RotaryEngine #CarHistory #ClassicCars #GermanCars #AutomotiveHistory