Kenichi Yamamoto was a mechanical engineer who rose through the ranks to become the chairman of Mazda. He pioneered the development of the rotary engine at Mazda, which powered 1.8 million Mazda vehicles. One of the most popular was the MX-5 Miata. He died December 20, 2017 in Kanagawa Prefecture, near Tokyo. Godspeed and zoom zoom, Yamamoto-san. Kenichi Yamamoto, Father of Mazda’s Rotary Engine, Is Dead at 95 - The New York Times Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.
I worked with a draftsman that had been involved in the rotary engine development. Ah well, a good long life.
That implies the Miata had a rotary engine. If that was the intent, it never did and only came with small, conventional 4 cylinder otto-cycle engines (and a 5 speed manual if you're doing it right). I really like the Miata but never got excited about the rotary. I likened it to the 2-cycle as a relatively simple way to get more power out of a limited size but at too high a cost in other important areas. I think it was more valued by Mazda as a marketing tool, like Subaru with flat motors or Chrysler with Hemi's, to stand out rather than for its more technical properties.
I'm surprised that the article didn't mention NSU, the company that first produced rotary engine cars, such as the Wankel Spyder and the Ro80 before Mr. Yamamoto help fixed problems in the engine. They weren't the greatest, but they were out there before Mazda.
