In its April 1974 issue, Popular Science shed light on a Chevrolet Vega-based sporty coupe that was slated to compete with the subcompact Ford Mustang II. The unnamed car’s main claim to fame would be a 206-cubic-inch Wankel engine. Jim Dunne (1974) listed a number of innovative features, including what a subhead called the “End of the oil change”:
“GM President Ed Cole has stated that the RC 206 [engine] may not require any periodic oil change. Test units are running with a normal consumption of one quarter per 1500 to 2000 miles. Some oil must be burned up, for if the apex seals are not lubricated, they cannot seal properly. ‘The oil requirement factor will drop by at least two,’ said Ed Cole, making clear what the targets are.
The engine oil is also responsible for cooling the rotors (the housing is water-cooled). Mazda uses external oil coolers, but Chevrolet cools the oil right in the sump, which is finned on the outside and exposed to a cooling air stream underneath the car. Oil changes can be eliminated because the Wankel is free of blowby gases to contaminate the oil.”
Dunne wrote that Chevrolet staff referred to the Wankel-powered car as a “Mustang killer.” However, it was projected to have a base price of $4,000. This was in contrast to the Mustang II, whose 1975 prices ranged from $3,529 for a base four-cylinder notchback to $4,188 for a V8-powered Mach I (Gunnell, 2002). One reason for the Chevy’s higher price was the need for two catalytic converters.
“GM has $100 million staked on [the Wankel],” Dunn noted, “and reports suggest that Chevy will charge $800 extra for the engine alone — over the new small V8!”
— Jim Dunne, Popular Science (1974, pp. 86, 172)
RE:SOURCES
- Dunne, Jim; 1974. “Coming in ’75: Chevy’s new Vega-sized Wankel-powered car.” Popular Science. April issue: pp. 84-86, 172.
- Gunnell, John; 2002. Standard Catalog of American Cars, 1946-1975. Revised 4th Ed. Krause Publications, Iola, WI.
ADVERTISING & BROCHURES:
- oldcarbrochures.org: Chevrolet Monza (1976)
Why would anybody pay an extra $ 800.00 for a Vega with a rotary engine ? By 1974, the word was out that the Vega was a trouble-prone car with the aluminum four-banger. G.M. had hyped the Vega 2300 in late 1970-1971 as the American import fighter. Why would anybody believe that a new type of engine from Chevrolet would be any better than the Vega 2300 ? G.M. was not Mazda, that didn’t hype their rotary models other than advertised them starting in 1972. But the Wankel would have tanked in the 1973 Arab oil embargo for both G.M. and A.M.C. and again in 1979. I owned a 1985 RX-7, which by then was a very refined, smooth, powerful and reliable sports car. The only drawback was that for such a light aerodynamic car, the twin-rotor B-13 engine did not deliver stellar gas mileage. Of course, by 1974, Ed Cole was no longer President of G.M. Do you think Cole would have put Corvair flat-sixes or Wankel rotaries in place of Chevy sixes and small-blocks in Checkers if he had not have crashed that plane in 1974 ?
Well, it did at least result in a handy and great-looking Chevy Monza coupe that was great on the road and in modified format was a success in racing.
Mr. Ludvigsen, it is an honor to communicate with you. I have several of your books and treasure the copies of Sports Cars Illustrated the you edited and directed. My wife and I owned a red 1977 Monza 2+2 hatchback coupe with heavy-duty suspension, radial tires, and a 305 cu. in. V-8. It was a well-built car but the TurboHydramtic 250 was not up to the challenge of the small-block. At less than 2,500-miles, the transmission failed. We bought the car from Pete Estes’ son, Bill Estes in Zionsville, IN. Bill had personally sold us the car at his recently acquired Chevrolet dealership. (I knew him with his sponsorships on WIBC radio when Bill was general manager of Tutweiler Cadillac.) He ordered a replacement under warranty, but it was a TH350. I understand that from that point on, he only sold V-8 Monzas with the TH350 or manual transmission. My wife mainly drove the car, but it was a real hot rod. The only thing we should have added was Positraction, We could easily spin the wheels if we did not carefully use the accelerator, and my wife collected a few speeding tickets. When it was paid off, she sold it to a young man, whom promptly got involved in a street speed contest and totaled the Monza by hitting a utility pole. (Fortunately, he escaped serious injury !)
How did Ed Cole manage to trot Chevrolet down a dead-end path with the Wankel engine, and still get to keep his job with GM?
I have thus far only found the year Cole retired — 1974. He hit age 65 in September of that year.
John Z. DeLorean argued in his book about GM (go here) that Cole’s contributions were “strongly confined to the product areas alone.” His position as president did not include oversight of GM’s foreign holdings and financial decisions tended to be made elsewhere. Being hemmed in like that may have accentuated Cole’s desire to tamper with product designs to a greater degree than past GM presidents.
Of course, Cole also tended to gravitate toward engineering solutions that ended up having problems that cost GM dearly. The paradox is that without Cole, GM might have produced much blander cars from an engineering standpoint.
Or, arguably, the same cars without dead-end engineering, such as a redesigned Corvair with a front, liquid-cooled engine (as you’ve previously discussed) which could have become the 1975 (Corvair) Monza. If Ed Cole had been at AMC, he would surely have bankrupted them, lol.
The Wankel Rotary was ultimately a white elephant, GM, Citroen and NSU (later VW with passive stake via production KKM 871) would have been better off collaborating with Mazda to help off-set the cost burden and with few exceptions limit its application only to sportscars.
Holden would develop a Torana-based Monza-looking Rotary-powered car called the Green Lizard/Ikara, which never went beyond the clay model stage and was cancelled alongside the GM Rotary project. Had it or ideally its styling reached production, it is possible the Ikara’s styling would have been applied on other Holdens including the stillborn Torana VA.
https://www.shannons.com.au/club/news/retroautos/green-lizard-rotary-torana/
Robert Spinello stopped by to say that “The 262 V8 replaced the rotary. They weren’t planning on a V8 until the rotary was cancelled.”