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<x-flowed>Dave Hall wrote:
It was the Ro-80 that killed NSU as an independent entity. It was a phenomenal car as I understand, but it's rotary engine was a durability nightmare. Like many early rotary engines (Mazda, too, was not immune in their early Rx series) it suffered badly from rotor tip wear. NSU's rotaries often needed complete overhauls by 30,000 miles, and honoring the warranty claims bankrupted them. Still, they had great technologies otherwise, particularly in the fields of transaxle design and unibody construction.I thought Audi and NSU were linked before VW bought them. We camped in Neckarsulm some years ago on the way to Stuttgart from Wolfsburg - went on a drive past the NSU-Audi factory.From a website:-"The four rings of the Audi badge symbolise the brands Audi, DKW, Horch and Wanderer, which were later combined under the umbrella of Auto Union. Auto Union and NSU merged in 1969". There are examples of all these makes in the VW Museums in Wolfsburg.
The first watercooled "VW" was the NSU-designed K-70, first produced in 1971; the NSU Ro-80 rotary engined preceded it. The Audi 50 was the basis for the Mk 1 VW Polo, and I'm fairly sure the Audi 60(?) became the Golf. The Audi 80 and Passat shared many similarities too.
That one is actually an NSU design! Piston version of the much more attractivehttp://thesamba.com/vw/classifieds/detail.php?id=147210
and futuristically-styled
Ro-80.
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