Saab offered the model 96 with a 2-stroke through 1968 alongside a 4-stroke V4 from Ford of Europe. The V4 was introduced in 1967. 2-strokes cannot pass emission standards for on-road cars from about 1969-on and now Tier 4 off-road standards enacted in 2004. The Wankel rotary (Mazda rotary) was, arguably a 2-stroke design now out of production, a headache to apply emission controls.
Isn’t a 2 cycle engine easier to repair and last longer than the modern 4 cyc, v8 engines?
Xaml That depends on how well it’s made. GM 2cycle diesels used in city buses lasted a very long time, as they were well constructed. A 2cycle Lawnboy lasted 25 years, again because of a very sound design. Between 1969 and 2008 I made do with 2 Lawnboys, and neither was worn out or needed repairs when I sold them.
"Isn’t a 2 cycle engine easier to repair and last longer than the modern 4 cyc, v8 engines? "
Easier to repair? By far, very few parts in comparison.
Last longer? No, that comes down to things independent of 2 vs 4 stroke: specific output, engine design, metallurgy, etc.
2 stroke motorcycles didn’t have any advantage over 4 strokes regarding longevity. Lot more old 4 stroke Hondas out there than old 2 stroke Kawasakis, Suzukis, and Yamahas…
Re: Where do you live that you see Trabants ?
TSM … San Jose. At least one is putting around here-a-bouts from time to time. One wonders how these cars are able to pass Calif emissions? The one I seem to see, it looks like a restored classic, so maybe that’s the explanation. Cars older than 1975 or so are exempt from emissions testing.
Re: Restrictions on car ownership in communist countries.It isn't just communist countries. For the most part people in Thailand who own their own car obtain it through their employment. It is a perk in other words. Buying a car as an individual is prohibitively expensive for most people, not only b/c income is lower than the USA, but b/c individual car purchases are taxed a lot. I suppose it is done to control the number of cars being driven, minimizing traffic jams, and road construction cost.
Was the engine in the 2CV a two cycle? the GM ( Detroit) diesel was a very good diesel engine actually it had a lot of power for its displacement(due to double the power strokes) and the things needed a supercharger to run(Rootes type blower) and were actually quite fuel efficient another merit was they would actually hold back pretty good going down hill due to the parasitic drag of the supercharger,not really such a bad engine all in all(actually in the early days before turbocharging was common,they were better at high altitudes then the naturally aspirated Caterpillar engine)-Kevin
@kmccune No, the 2CV, or the “Ugly Duckling” as it became known in Europe, was a 4 cycle, 2 cylinder engine and as a result it was rough running (put put) at low speed. I was in Europe on vacation in 1960 and ran into two US school teachers on vacation as well. They rented one of these cars for their trip and compared to my VW beetle it was a primitive car, with FWD and no power steering, gutless engine and wallopy ride.
@Doc,Merry Christmas and thanks-Kevin
What is a quick explanation for why a 2 cycle engine produces too much pollution? Are the old 2 cycle engines 2 cylinder or one? Can a car be run by a one cylinder engine?
There are 2 reasons 2 cycles make more pollution. First, they have oil blended in with the gas (either in the gas tank or with an oil tank and pump) to lubricate the parts in the crankcase and the cylinder wall. So every combustion cycle burns (only partially) some oil that goes out as unburned hydrocarbons.
Second, with no valves there’s poor control over the gases going out the exhaust. There’s typically some fresh air/fuel/oil mixture that goes out each stroke, adding pollution.
You can have 1, 2, 3, or 4 cylinder 2 strokes. You can google the cars you’re curious about to see which each had. But none had a 1 cylinder, I bet (too much vibration).
@Xaml & Tex, a largeish 2 cycle one cylinder wouldnt necessarily have a whole lot of vibration( some 2 cycle motorcycles have a fair amount of displacement ) I would guess the peaky powerband and general lack of low end torque would have made it very questionable and back in the day anti vibe tech wasnt quite so good as it is now(just a commentary on the general state of 2 cycle tech) some old 4 cycle autos were very small displacement wise(I had an old Renault Dauphine,think the 4 cyl engine displaced 848cc eg; )and on the old GM diesels the crankcase was scvanged I believe,the numbers on the Detroit diesel told you a lot about the engine for example,a 6V-71 was a engine with a vee configuration and 6 cyls with 71 cid in each cylinder-I know I went off on a tangent but the GM diesel in those days was a two stroke,( very noisy-thats why those engines were called screaming Jimmys) the Rootes Blower contributed to the racket-Kevin
Lumping the Detroit Diesels and the 2cycle auto and motorcycle engines is mixing apples and oranges. The Detroit didn’t need burn a premix of oil and fuel. It just has a power stroke every downstroke and intakes ports in the cylinder wall (no intake valve(s). Quite different for emissions.
The only 2-cycle car I ever rode in was a DKW. One of my uncles, who was notorious for being able to ruin ANY car in a short period, had one in the late '50s. I don’t know what year it was made, but I only saw it one time before he ruined it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DKW
He later went on to ruin a series of Cadillacs and Mercedes Benzes . A Mercedes Diesel did it’s best to avoid ruination, but he finally killed it too. I suspect his trade-ins ruined the reputations of several formerly honest used car dealers.
(Later) author Kurt Vonnegut had a Saab dealership. http://inthesetimes.com/article/1726/ Even Vonnegut admitted that the cars were crap, with 2-cycle engines that would melt internally and seize up going down the road. It’s surprising that the marque lasted as long as it did, although they did eventually turn out some very nice high quality cars.
DKW was one of the forerunners of Audi. They were not great cars and their nick name was Deutsche Kinder Wagen, translated German Baby Buggy.
I have also known some people who could systematically wreck a car in short order. As an amateur psychologist I concluded that lack of mechanical understanding, lack of care, being cheap (no steenkin’ maintenance), and obstenacy to want to make the car do what you want it to do regardless of its limitations were some of the contributing factors.
In our neighborhood there is a shortcut for the busses ONLY, and it has a trap that prevents cars and light trucks with their narrower tread to pass through. Nevertheless about once every two weeks someone is caught in the trap in spite of a large waring sign that says “BUSSES ONLY, DO NOT ENTER!”.
“DKW was one of the forerunners of Audi. They were not great cars and their nick name was Deutsche Kinder Wagen, translated German Baby Buggy.”
@Docnick–I have never before heard DKW being translated as, Deutche Kinder Wagen. And, DKW was not one of the forerunners of Audi, which is actually an older make.
To quote Cars Of The World, by J. D. Scheel:
“Auto Union was formed during the crisis of the 1930s from three older makes: Audi, Wanderer, & Horch, and the newer DKW.”
The so-called Audi symbol–four interlinked rings–was actually the logo for Auto Union, because it was a unification of those 4 makes (Audi, Wanderer, Horch & DKW) under one roof. After all of the other makes died, the 4 rings became the logo for the one remaining member of the conglomerate, Audi.
Scheel also says:
“The Danish engineer, Jorgen Skafte Rasmussen was the originator of the DKW.
The letters stood for Damp Kraft Wagen, since Rasmussen’s first design was a light steam car. The 2-cycle gasoline engine came originally from the DKW works in 1919 as a toy model engine, but Das Kleine Wunder (that little wonder) grew into a motorcycle engine and was used in the first rear-wheel drive gasoline DKW car in 1928. Three years later, the firm adopted front-wheel drive…”
What many folks are also unaware of is that the original Saab design, the Model 92, was developed right after WW II by newly-unemployed Swedish aircraft engineers, with the pre-war DKW as its basis, and for several years, those early Saabs had 2 cylinder, 2 cycle engines that were essentially copies of the DKW engine.
Again, to quote J.D. Scheel, “The transverse 2 cylinder engine was not greatly different from the DKW’s…although the transmission design was entirely original”.
In 1955, Saab enlarged that 2-cycle, 2 cylinder engine to 3 cylinders.
@VDC driver Thanks for the additonal info. DKW was a local nick name due to the lack of respect for these cars. I only ever saw DKW cars in Europe in the post war years. They all seemed to smoke. I was aware of the Audi racing program of the 30s, but did not make the connection. In any case, DKW was not a highly regarded car. Our local doctor had an Opel Olympia and better heeled drivers bought low end Mercedes cars such as the 170, or imported US cars such as Chevies and Fords.
@Docnick–Those racing cars were actually known as “Auto Union” cars, not Audis.
These fearsomely powerful, fearsomely oversteering rear-engine racers, largely developed by Ferdinand Porsche, were built at the Horch works, as Horch was the most expensive, most powerful of the Auto Union makes. Audi at that time was essentially the Buick of Germany, making good-quality, if unexciting, cars that appealed to Doctors.
Horch was a very flashy, very powerful make of car, and they actually made most of the huge open parade cars used by the Nazis. However, all of the Horches marketed to the public were front engine/RWD, and the rear engine/RWD design was used only on the Auto Union racers built by Horch.
I recall seeing DKWs for a few years at the annual NY Auto Show, circa 1960-62. They were small and cheap, and were only marketed in The US for a few years, due to very poor sales figures.
Good lord . . . selling a DKW in the US in the 1960s must have been a marketing nightmare
Even the Ford Falcon at least had a straight 6
Was the DKW trying to compete in the Beetle “segment” . . . ?
Because it wouldn’t have been able to compete on even footing with any domestic car built by the big domestic manufacturers at the time
@ Pvt,dont get excited most of us know the difference,as far as i know there are new 2cycle detroits though I think maybe there is a locomotive engine of the 2 stroke design as a matter of fact these old Jimmys had a few issues with oil control from time to time and yes they burnt straight No.2,when you had the oil pan off they looked like anything else laying on the concrete stareing up at the engine block with oil dripping in your eyes-Kevin
“Was the DKW trying to compete in the Beetle “segment” . . . ?”
Yes, they were, but they failed miserably at it.
The public was not fond of having to add oil to each tank of gas, so that was an additional hurdle that they had to cross, which VW did not have any problem with.
Also, VW had an incredible domestic parts system in operation w/in a couple of years after they began operations in THE US. It was said (whether true or not) that every VW dealer could build a complete car from scratch if he had to. I am positive that they didn’t stock belly pans, but supposedly they were required to have every other part in stock–including fenders, doors, & hoods.
What doomed almost all of the other foreign mfrs (besides poor reliability in many cases) was an incredibly l-o-o-o-o-n g delay in getting parts. A Fiat dealer or a Renault dealer in the '60s might not be able to get vital parts for…possibly a few weeks. Since those two makes broke down rather often, just imagine how few Fiat & Renault owners were willing to consider another car from those makes after having their cars sit for weeks while waiting for parts!
Among the foreign makes competing with VW (or in a slightly more expensive class) in the US marketplace in those days were…
Borgward
Austin
Austin-Healey
Citroen
DAF
Datsun (now Nissan, of course)
DKW
Fiat
Lloyd
Hillman
Messerschmidt
Mercedes (distributed by Studebaker & sold at Stude dealerships)
Morris
MG
NSU
Opel (sold at Buick dealers)
Peugeot
Renault
Saab
Singer
Simca (a division of Chrysler)
Skoda
Sunbeam
Vauxhall (sold at Pontiac dealers)
Wartburg
Most had weak dealer networks (for example, the NSU dealer in Elizabeth, NJ was a small corner gas station on a back street with little traffic), and–with the exception of VW–most had very poor parts availability. Is it any wonder that so few from the list above were able to survive in the US marketplace?
Edited to add:
Every year when I went to the NY auto show, I would pick up brochures from every mfr.
And–you guessed it…about 20 years ago, I threw all of them away.
While none of the brochures were extremely valuable, in retrospect, I do think that I threw away at least a few hundred $$ worth of automobile collectibles when I decided to dump all of those old brochures from at least 5 years of auto shows in the early '60s.
:-((