Felix Heinrich Wankel was a German mechanical engineer and inventor after whom the Wankel engine was named.
27 Facts About Felix Wankel
2.
Felix Wankel was the only son of Gerty Wankel and Rudolf Wankel, a forest assessor.
3.
Felix Wankel's father died in World War I Thereafter, the family moved to Heidelberg.
4.
Felix Wankel went to high schools in Donaueschingen, Heidelberg, and Weinheim, and left school without Abitur in 1921.
5.
Felix Wankel learned the trade of purchaser at the Carl Winter Press in Heidelberg and worked for the publishing house until June 1926.
6.
Felix Wankel was now determined to receive unemployment benefits and to focus on the machine shop.
7.
One of his friends, who had graduated from university, gave his name and transformed the shop into an official garage for DKW and Cleveland motor bikes in 1927, where Felix Wankel worked from time to time until his arrest in 1933.
8.
Felix Wankel was gifted since childhood with an ingenious spatial imagination and became interested in the world of machines, especially combustion engines.
9.
Felix Wankel was able to teach himself technical subjects.
10.
Felix Wankel founded and led youth groups associated with a cover-up organization of the NSDAP.
11.
Felix Wankel, who sympathized with the social-revolutionary wing of the NSDAP with Gregor Strasser, then founded his own National Socialist splinter group in Lahr and continued his attacks on Wagner.
12.
Since the Nazis' seizure of power on 30 January 1933 had strengthened his position, Wagner had Felix Wankel arrested and imprisoned in the Lahr jail in March 1933.
13.
Only by intervention of Hitler's economic adviser Wilhelm Keppler and Hitler himself, was Felix Wankel set free in September 1933.
14.
Felix Wankel now helped Wankel to get state contracts and his own Wankels Versuchs Werkstatten experimental workshop in Lindau.
15.
Felix Wankel tried to rejoin the NSDAP in 1937, but was turned down.
16.
Felix Wankel was imprisoned by French authorities for several months in 1945 and his laboratory was closed by French occupation troops.
17.
Felix Wankel's work was confiscated and he was prohibited from doing any more work.
18.
Felix Wankel began development of the engine at NSU Motorenwerke AG, leading to the first running prototype on 1 February 1957.
19.
Felix Wankel became a success in business by securing license agreements for the engine to manufacturers around the world.
20.
In 1971 Felix Wankel sold his share in licensing royalties for 50 million Deutschmarks to the English conglomerate Lonrho.
21.
From 1986 the Felix Wankel Institute entered cooperation agreement with Daimler Benz, which covered the institute's operating costs in return for research rights.
22.
Felix Wankel later sold the institute to Daimler Benz for 100 million Deutschmarks.
23.
The Felix Wankel principle applied only to a "rotary piston" and not to the engine as a whole which was a stationary assembly, unlike rotary engines in which the entire engine rotated about a fixed crankshaft.
24.
Felix Wankel never had a driving license, because he was extremely near-sighted.
25.
Felix Wankel was the owner of an NSU Ro 80 with a Wankel engine, which was chauffeur driven for him.
26.
In 1969, Felix Wankel was granted an honorary Doctorate of Engineering from Technical University Munich.
27.
Felix Wankel was known for his championing of animal rights and opposition to the use of animals in testing.