West Midlands Police’s Wankel-engined woes

THE LETTER from Bill Munro in Octane 208 about Dennis Poore, CEO of Norton owner Manganese Bronze Holdings, demanding that a Norton Wankel engine be fitted in an MG Metro came as a complete surprise to me – as it would have done to John Favill, a senior designer with Norton-Villiers, who gave me a lot of information on the Wankel engine and much else.

I assume that the Norton Wankel motorbike engine in the MG Metro was a prototype water-cooled design, like the ones in the Norton-Villiers police bikes. As described in my book Motoring in the Last 100 Years, the Wolverhampton Way, this had its origins in a licence to produce the Wankel engine that was offered to BSA in 1972. In 1973 BSA was taken over by Norton-Villiers, and by 1979 a batch of 25 Wankel-powered Norton ’bikes had been produced.

The Mk2 version, introduced in 1981, had an impressive spec: a 450lb kerbside weight, 80bhp, top speed of more than 130mph, plus the typical rotary engine characteristics of uncanny smoothness and vivid acceleration. Its twin rotors developed the same number of power pulses as a six-cylinder piston engine.

The machines were tested during 1981-82 by being loaned to police forces, who then had the option to buy. On the whole, the police were impressed, though inevitably some problems arose.

Initially the rotor seals blew and, while this problem was cured, Inspector Williams of the West Midlands Police described the air-cooled Mk2 as ‘very fast, but noisy’ and added that it had problems with the tick-over, and did not run slowly. The fuel consumption was also not impressive at about 35mpg, but very long periods between major services were encouraging.

Alongside the finned air-cooled engine, a water-cooled version had been developed, which was actually lighter and produced 90bhp and a potential 140mph. It eventually led to the successful Commander model, built in both police and civilian versions from 1988 to 1992.

Peter Morrey, Aberdeenshire