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Written by Ollie Marriage
Everyone goes on about how rotary-engined cars sound. Some suggest they"re as angry and piercing as a woodmill bandsaw, others that they"re shriller and more irritating than a mosquito in your inner ear. No one ever mentions the smell.At this stage, Oz Clarke would probably start harping on about pungent bouquets of this and syrupy aromas of that, but what we"re dealing with here is the afterburnings of petrol and oil, so wine phraseology isn"t really appropriate. You know Castrol R, though? It"s like that, but instead of the rich, earthy tones, we have darker, more subversive nasal textures, combined with the sweeter high notes of what appears to be ski wax, if that"s of any help to you.To be precise, we have Redline 50W race oil combined with Castrol two-stroke oil in a one ounce per gallon high-octane ratio. It has a tang. And rotary engines famously burn a lot of fuel and oil. Sitting on the pit wall at Laguna Seca as five of them chew on their fluids, ingesting, digesting and expelling, it"s not only my nose that"s being assailed. You can feel the oiliness in the air, taste it, breathe it. It"s cloying, lingers and wafts around. If I could pinch the air and rub it between my thumb and forefinger, it would be like, oh I don"t know, treacle maybe slick, with a hint of stickiness.Photography: Rowan HorncastleThis feature was originally published in issue 283 of Top Gear magazine.
Date written: 10 Jul 2016
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 4198
Everyone goes on about how rotary-engined cars sound. Some suggest they"re as angry and piercing as a woodmill bandsaw, others that they"re shriller and more irritating than a mosquito in your inner ear. No one ever mentions the smell.At this stage, Oz Clarke would probably start harping on about pungent bouquets of this and syrupy aromas of that, but what we"re dealing with here is the afterburnings of petrol and oil, so wine phraseology isn"t really appropriate. You know Castrol R, though? It"s like that, but instead of the rich, earthy tones, we have darker, more subversive nasal textures, combined with the sweeter high notes of what appears to be ski wax, if that"s of any help to you.To be precise, we have Redline 50W race oil combined with Castrol two-stroke oil in a one ounce per gallon high-octane ratio. It has a tang. And rotary engines famously burn a lot of fuel and oil. Sitting on the pit wall at Laguna Seca as five of them chew on their fluids, ingesting, digesting and expelling, it"s not only my nose that"s being assailed. You can feel the oiliness in the air, taste it, breathe it. It"s cloying, lingers and wafts around. If I could pinch the air and rub it between my thumb and forefinger, it would be like, oh I don"t know, treacle maybe slick, with a hint of stickiness.Photography: Rowan HorncastleThis feature was originally published in issue 283 of Top Gear magazine.
Date written: 10 Jul 2016
More of this article on the Top gear website
ID: 4198
