NSU was founded in the 19th century, building bicycles and then Motorcycles starting in 1901, followed by their first car in 1905. Before World War 2 they never truly succeeded in building automobiles and sold their factory to Fiat, which built Fiat models for the German market in it. Following World War 2, NSU returned to motorcycle manufacture and in 1957 they produced their first new car, which was the NSU Prinz, a small car with a 2 cylinder 600cc engine based on their motorcycle engines. The Wankel engined Spider premiered in 1964, with suspension based on the Prinz and a body design by Bertone. The car was the first to use the rotary engine design by Felix Wankel and then simplified by Hanns Dieter Paschke, both working for NSU at the time. Licenses for the rotary engine design were sold to multiple companies all over the world, including Mazda, which produced the majority of the world’s rotary engined vehicles. The rotary engine was the biggest change in automotive engine design in the 20th century, swapping a piston design for a 3 sided rotor moving in a roughly oval shaped housing. The new engine was compact, light, and mechanically simple with very few moving parts. Its biggest flaws were poor fuel consumption, largely due to the irregular combustion chamber shape, and a dependence on a number of highly stressed seals on the rotor to keep the combustion chamber isolated. The seals proved to be their undoing, especially with the RO80 car, that came out after the spider, which featured a twin rotor version of the engine, requiring the company to replace engines in cars under warranty and helping to sink the small company into debt, after which they were taken over by Volkswagen in 1969 and the rotary engine was shelved. This NSU spider is a very well preserved low mileage original example, with mostly original paint and an original interior and top. The engine runs well and the car drives as it should. The small rotary engine does get the car moving reasonably quickly, but as is typical, it generates most of its power starting around 3000 RPM. From there it pulls strongly as high as you want to rev it, but as most of the seal failures happen when the engine sees high RPM for extended use, it is best to keep the RPMs under control. Suspension is very good and the ride is quite comfortable and the car feels well built, without rattles and creaks common of old cars of this era. The engine sound is unique with a bit more of a 2 stroke whine rather than the typical engine noises and the pitch rises smoothly as you accelerate. The remote gear shift is somewhat vague as is typical for rear engined cars, but the car shifts well through the gears. The car probably looks a bit sportier than it actually is, but for the tiny displacement and light weight, it can move reasonably quickly once it gets going and you spend most of your time around the 4500 RPM range which allows you to stay comfortably in the power band of the motor while not stressing it too much. As this is an original car with a notoriously fragile engine, I don’t drive it much aside from the occasional trip in town, but for a town car, it serves very well.