Drove past a minty looking car with '70s styling that had "Ro80" on the back. Looked it up and it's one of these:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSU_Ro_80
It's astonishing that someone could have one of those running here, it must be as hard as maintaining a WW2 aircraft...on an arctic base.
I saw one a few years ago myself, strange car to say the least.
Maybe the owner swapped out the original NSU rotary for a Mazda rotary or a boinger.
I like the Ro80's styling. It's modern-ish but very 60's at the same time.
The original Ro80 engine isn't quite as unreliable as people make it out to be, part of the reputation came from NSU garages swapping out engines at the first sign of an (often easy repairable) fault as they didn't understand the engines that well. Wait, where have I heard that one before 
.
But whoever owns that probably gets a lot of parts from Germany...
I'd love one of those. It's a couple hundred pounds lighter than an RX-8, too... what do those go for, anyway? They have to be rare, but I imagine there isn't as much demand for them as there is for, say, an old Boss Mustang...
I always though of them as a sort of bastardized Citroen, trading the great suspension for a dorito motor.
They have nothing to do whatsoever with Citroen.
Well I didn't have a camera but today I found where the Ro80 resides with another rotary NSU that looks kind of like a triumph spitfire. Weird the other car hanging out was a Morris Minor 1000, at least the guy has one sensible reliable car.
That's a NEAT car. I know about a couple of the smaller NSUs, but I've never seen one of those. That's a labor of love, for sure.
There's usually a hand full of NSU's that come to the Carlisle Import show if anyone's free in a couple of weeks. I've never looked at them all that closely... I'll try to change that this year.
My guess was going to be a hippie. I was way off.
In reply to benzbaronDaryn:
The other car is most likely an NSU Wankel Spider. If that's his other car then finding spares for a Ro80 should not hold any fear for him...
Thanks for the info BoxheadTim, funny I finally went to a coffee place I've been meaning to go to and parked in an apartment parking lot were those two odd ducks. So weird.
Being something of a student of the history of the rotary engine, I've heard of both the Ro-80 and the Wankel Spider, but never seen either in the wild.
Neato!
Thread resurrection - Car featured in local mag:
http://tdsautomag.com/2013/09/24/b-a-c-c-revival-show/
Tiny island, killer cars. Neat stuff!
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