my left ear thoroughly enjoyed this episode of topgear

Incredible that this is a 1960s car. It looks kind of modern even now. I used to walk past one every day on the way to school in the 70s and think "wow look at that!"

My dad had one of only 3 in the country in Malawi 🇲🇼 in Southern Africa in the late 1970s ... I loved that car!

This car was actually designed by Claus Luthe, the same guy who would go on to give us the E30 3Series Beemer

it's starting to look dated a bit now, but it is nearly 50 years old, my old man was given 1 for the week-end once in the early 70s, whilst his company ford was being serviced, and I remember being blown away by it, it just looked so modern back then, and it was probably 10 years old even then.

George Cordingley, featured in the Video has sadly died aged 91. He was a wonderful person. R.I.P. George.

Christ. I remember this episode first time round

Had one in California when I was a teenager! My dad fell in love with it and bought for my mom. I believe it was a 1968. What a blast to drive especially as a 16 year old with a fresh license.

I'm not sure why the BBC hasn't made a car show for several decades? They were so good.

I still think this is one of the most beautiful cars ever made.

I was born in that wonderful year 1967. Everything was so optimistic then! Several ideas were naive, but some ideas shouldn't be forgotten!

This car was way ahead of its time!

Still looks fresh today 2023❤

The best Top Gear days....

A link to Ro80 history is now gone forever. Thanks for everything you did at the Ro80 Club GB, George.

This is what the Austin 1800 should have looked like!!

£1500.... Not any more.

Stunning motor... After Clarkson and co the BBC should have gone back to Quinton and taken Top Gear back to this format and just thrown in a Tour instead of looking for replacement prats to head up the show!

You cant fail to take issue with Wilson's comments on concept cars, the Citroen DS is still one helluva beautiful vision of the future.

I don't know how it worked in the rest of the world, but the NSU came to Australia with a "no questions asked" warranty. If you blew an engine, they'd replace it for free. Unfortunately this happened far too often. If an NSU pulled up at the lights next to another NSU, the drivers often held up several fingers. This meant how many angines they'd had. Not surprisingly, they went broke very quickly.

As he was gushing about the futuristic NSU Ro80 I thought that I heard him saying the same things about the Citroen DS

If you rode in an Ro80 when it came out and you were 23, you'd be 72 now. The age of a freaking pensioner. How the HELL did that happen? Back when this aired (1995), said pensioner would be only 51. Today's 51 year olds might have ridden in a Vauxhall Cavalier 3 (first-generation Opel Vectra) when it came out. June 17, 2016 2:45 am

What a thing of beauty the RO80 is...not to mention a bargain!

Top gear as it used to be, about cars and not a ridiculous pantomime for Clarkson and co.

Went to Ireland in one when I was a kid. A fetching shade of turd brown with nicotine yellow interior. Never missed a beat after my dad fitted a ford v6 power plant..

Every time you copy a VHS tape three things happen to the generations: The picture gets softer. The colour saturation is increased. The colour drops by one line relative to the rest of the picture. You can see therefore that this is a copy of a copy of a copy etc. Then if someone only connects one channel up you can get sound in just your left ear too. (VHS stinks and it always did.)

The Ro80 was voted Car of the year when it was launched due to its styling and ,more importantly,this rotary powerplant but not many people knew how to "use" the engine which wore out prematurely-today the car is now being appreciated for the 💎that it is

That was the car who launched the Audi slogan "Vorsprunk durch technik"

'corners like it's on rails' Did you see the body roll when it went round the corner - it was practically cornering on its door handles!

Dont forget the smokeless two stroke oil (1%) in your fuel as anti corrosion additive when using modern ethanolized e5 and e10 fuels in older cars. ( You might ruin your carbs and fuel pump with the modern ultra dry fuels! -- so use 1% two stroke oil as additive!) In Germany the Lotus and Jaguar Club does so!

The Top Gear theme has changed so much... Also, they say at 0:36 that it's 1996.

Jeremy Clarkson had just turned 430 years old when this was recorded

More like 1984. I had one of those and it was amazingly modern in every way.

I just saw one of these! It was on a tow truck. That was also about to get to towed. Then they were gone.

Sorry Quentin, but the Citroen DS from 1955 (!) is the most modern looking car with timeless beauty. "The DS is not the car of the future, nor the car of the past, it´s the car of today". Always modern and up to date! But I really like the NSU Ro80 also! The only car that in some respects could rival the DS!

That "looking fresh way later, but ugly at the time" can be said especially for the mid 2000's 5 series which looks more modern than the current 5 series imo.

The nose styling reminds me of 1970s and 1980s Mercedes S-Class.

thank you for uplaoding this great video, and even better, its from Top gear !!!!

The NSU 80 was a brilliant idea but the technicians hadn´t been ready yet.

Still a very attractive car - visually and dynamically (I'd expect).

He says the Princess was hateful This NSU was ahead of its time Hah I can actually see more than a passing resemblance to the Ro80 in the side profile there in the Princess

Truly looks like a modern car.

Whilst Mazda have improved the longevity ... the rotary engine is still a very short lived affair compared to most engines

They hype for the wankel rotary was pretty incredible in the late 60s and early 70s, Mazda offered one in all of their cars by 1973, even their pickup trucks and planned to discontinue their piston engines, Citroen built an entire factory for them and put a few in the GS, and General Motors went all in, they cancelled all piston engine projects anticipating that all their cars would be rotary powered by 1980, and their President Ed Cole said the Wankel Engine would be one of the biggest technological revolutions of the postwar age. Then the problems with fuel economy and reliability turned out to be unsolvable which meant that all these carmakers had thrown millions of dollars down the drain.

Amazing car. Love my blue RO 80

I agree with the guy about styling; look at the Lamborghini Countach compared to the Miura; the latter a timeless classic, the other a doorstop.

The spiritual predecessor of Audi sedans as we know them today.

Not many Audi owners would recognise this. NSU Auto Union where Audi came from.

What the bloody hell is wrong with the dealoren's design?!

Had a Corgi (maybe it was Dinky) model of this in a beautiful burgundy colour with green tints.............at least that's how I remember it. Looks a bit like the Triumph 2000 from the front imo

Fuel consumption?

Pretty sure the early Mazda rotary engines, the 10A and 12A, are externally identical to the Ro80 which is no surprise given they bought the design from NSU. The Mazda having however, more conservative induction to the German's Peripheral ports. If you have to, JUST FIT A MAZDA UNIT people and leave things like Corsair V4's for what they do best- anchoring boats.

Notice how they moved the steering wheel to the right, but left the wipers in the continental orientation. I had the opportunity of driving one back in the Seventies. I was only used to manual transmissions. When it came time to change gears, I put my hand on the shifter and firmly stepped on what I thought was the clutch. My passenger and I nearly went thru the windshield when the brakes hauled the car almost to a dead stop.

I can assure you, they don't usr ten quids worth of oil in 800 miles! :-)

I seriously want this car. Not only to say that I have it, but to also study the engine and improve upon its design.

RIP George Cordingly, murdered in 2012 by his son, Robert. The son was jailed at Bradford crown court, for the murder.

"HMC 371N" is a concours-standard Ro80 which has been owned by Vincent Demarest for many years.

If ever a car needed electricity

I liked the TR7 & the Princess (which I think is still good looking)

A pity NSU never developed the Ro80 with a regular 4-cylinder engine either Inline-4, Subaru-inspired water-cooled Flat-4 or even Lancia-inspired V4 layouts.

Quentin was thin of data in his style-over-content presenting wasn't he. I kept flipping between the vid and Wikipedia to get the bits he was omitting; and that was not an option way back in 1995 watching this on a CRT.

@Mechknight73 it's been done many times. works well and gives more power of course :-)

Aesthetical delight and technological disaster.

Why does he says, "R-O 80"? It's "Ro", like the greek letter!

This car is a design ancestor of the last 4 decades of BMW most iconic offerings.

Amazing Design for it's time,and ahead.

Sound only in left channel!!

NSU stands for non-specific urethritis. It is also called non-gonococcal urethritis (NGU) and non-specific genital infection ...is it only me who thought this was an April Fools??

Well I've only just pressed play on the video and I'm pretty sure it must be 1995 if they were going to be announcing the best bikes of 1996!

Times when Top Gear showed proper reviews of proper cars that ordinary folk could afford. What went wrong?

Is there a that report from the international motorshow in Birmingham from the same episode somewhere on youtube?

dude, i've seen 200.000 miles in a LADA with regular servicing. A two-stroke Wartburg can reach 100k (and there's no servicing, they have no oil, you just change the air filter).

"It was designed back in 65, when you were shambling around in your mum's Ford Anglia". Er, no Quentin. Back in 65, I was still 5 years away from existence. Not that this would've made much difference, as my mum didn't drive back then.

@potstillbill "Only the gradual loss of forward momentum would warn them, and for many a rotormotor, that warning came too late." Modern fuel injected rotaries with emu's can't over-rev - as with piston engines as well.

My Dad nearly brought one but changed his mind last minute & brought a mk1 Granada Coupe instead

Right ear feels lonely.

The Triumph tr7 and the DeLorean were brought up as bad looking cars but now they are extremely desirable, i wonder what cars we think are ugly now will become future cult classics

Citröen DS also looks fresh :D

The rest of the world buying Morris Minors? Even in the UK, the number buying those was rapidly diminishing and very few elsewhere.

Currently one for sale at £6950 on ebay. Has a Ford V4 in it

According to the manual it uses 1 litre every 800-1.000 kilometres (500-600 miles) but ive heard its more like 800 ,......fully synthetic thats at least £10?

@andy74123 The original format started in 1977 and was cancelled shortly after the turn of the millennium. The new format started in 2002.

Это уже история. Машина - легенда!

i meant that in the 60's and 70's,other cars that brits looked down on, lasted more. The LADA 1200 was launched in the early 70's and was very reliable! Wartburgs, which had 2-stroke engines, really prone to wear by design. They didn't have oil, they lubricated with the gas-oil mixture in the tank, which they then burned as fuel. The Renault 8, launched in the 60's, cheap, basic but very reliable. The engine would often hit 300k kms without intervention and also the rest of the car was very good

Skodas of old were neither good nor bad because they were RR. I was saying they were rather reliable cars (main components, not talking about the radio or wipers' blades), which also happened to be RR. As far as i know, cars contemporary to the NSU were not thought out in the in-shelf life manner. You may have noticed that Brit motors were never very popular across the mainland (Land Rovers may be an exception). I mean Peugeot probably sold more than all of the british industry(exaggeration).

wow thats a great looking car

They should have replaced the engine with a convential one and continue.

@MrPetrolhead09 The cluth is on the gear leather

@angelofragnarok Norton put a more advanced Rotary in a bike. I believe it was used to power light planes.

The designer Klaus Luthe moved to BMW at the end of NSU and does the first BMW series 3 design .

Mmmmm, I don't think the Delorean is ugly either, agree about the Princess though. There's a Delorean with a 3 Rotor engine from a Eunos Cosmo around, its quite a beast!

@djphilmanns If he gets a good offer, yes. Most Ro80's are €4000-6000 in Holland. My dad's car is in outstanding condition so he wants €10000 or more for it, but no one wants to pay that because maintenance is very expensive. And my sister loves the car :P

Should've invested in some apex seals bro

@tttpietje560 Your Dad must be Vincent then! It's a lovely car, my friend Clive Thomas worked on it's restoration at Rotechniks, is he really going to sell it?

XXX...I still have one....

@REPOMAN24722 "didnt they do any testing on the car so they would know how reliable the engine was, modern cars go thru millions of miles of testing." NSU were only small company at the time. Hence why they came up with a revolutionary design. The big boys would never be so adventurous. The car could have been continued for another 15 or 20 years with a piston engine in it. Mass production by VW would have dropped the build price.

Don't believe him for one minute regarding the Twin Rotary Wankel engine being sorted through specialists. I once owned a Mazda RX8 and the start up and shut down procedure was Space Shuttle-like,....and I'm talking about a 2008 model car. !!!! It was a nice smooth powerful engine in a car which had a uniquely styled body and interior, much like the RO80 but virtually impossible to run it economically with returns of 18-22 mpg and I tell you not there was nothing wrong with the engine in my car. There are plenty of videos on here of RX8 owners falling foul and flooding their rotors making the car a absolute nightmare to get started again. It makes me wonder why a car from the late 60's and 70's with the same twin rotor set up not suffer the same problems. ?

Wonder what would happen if you dropped a Mazda 13B in one instead?

Pop a Mazda 13b turbo into that and tune up the suspension, big wheels and all, and I'd go that NSU.

Except now, years later, even Mazda was forced to throw in the towel on production model rotary engines. They just don't work in the practical world.