From wikipedia:

"Originally, the car's rear-mounted power plant was to be a Citroën Wankel rotary engine, but was replaced with a French-designed and produced PRV (Peugeot-Renault-Volvo) fuel injected V6 because of the poor fuel economy of the rotary engine, an important consideration at a time of worldwide fuel shortages. "

Some guys did do a project and put a Cosmo engine into one though:

http://carscoop.blogspot.com/2007/05...ry-engine.html

Video is dead there but:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LV8cltkBpc

 

cool!!!!!!!!!!!

 

nice

 

cool

 

Cool !

 

It's a shame about the 20B DeLorean in that video. First, it is painted black. Second, it's on the stock turbos. If you are going to put a 20B into a car, at least do it with some style and run a reasonable turbo.

Yes, originally the DMC-12 was to be rotary. It was abandoned not only because of fuel economy but also development time and cost. Actually that's sort of why the PRV ended up as the engine; it was cheap, available and good on fuel.

John DeLorean was involved in rotary development since his GM days. He was behind the rotary corvette, the Aerovette, running a 4 rotor of almost 600 cubic inches (of Curtis Wright origin).

 

The Chevy Monza was supposed to be the first real Chevy with rotary too. Not to take away the coolness of the DeLorean.

 

This is actually kind of depressing. When you start reading about how many rotary projects were abandoned (Citroen's program, GM's program, John Deere's military rotaries) you get discouraged.

 

Few companies were willing to commit in the middle of a fuel crisis like Mazda. And it damn near bankrupted Mazda but obviously the rewards were worth it. The 70s was kind of a wasteland, technology wise, for most car manufacturers.

 

Is the DeLorean the car that coke built?

 

No, not at all.

 

I thought Mr. DeLoreon got in trouble.

 

The original Vector was planned to be powered by a rotary engine. It saddens me to learn of all the cars that were going to be rotary powered only to be scrapped because the economic problems in the 70s.

John DeLorean Arrest and Trail

 

He did, but that was already after the car company was well on the road to failure. He did the deal to try and save the company which obviously didn't work. He was then acquitted when the sting was found by the court to be entrapment.