Quote Originally Posted by John Schubert View Post
My father worked at CW & so did Edgar Rose who left Merc had a non compete, went to CW before joining Charlie Strang at OMC. CW had the NA contract for the Wankel rights. Sold some rights to GMC for on the road use in cars & part to OMC for off road use, thus the snowmobile, outboards & never produced useage for the mini race cars that the Delorean brothers were involved with. We did build the cars for them for their amusement parks, each turn designed from a European F1 track, but we bought the wankels from Sachs their original supplier. When Jim Briggs & I went to visit the Deloreans in Michigan, they let us drive a couple of the cars, pretty sweet & fast. Found out after our Demo that they had the governors disconnected so that we would be impressed. We built them in our little plant in Manawa, WI. Project didn't last very long, the Delorean part went "belly up"!
John: slight correction. The GM agreement with CW had no use restrictions and had a non-share after sighing clause that caused the entire rotary club to fall apart. Prior to GM all info/ patents/ideas were sharable with all members without fees. CW gave away the store thinking GM would create the royalties that hadn't been seen previously. Their thinking Ford, AM. Motors; etc. would follow close behind GM and the need for OMC's potential would be small potatoes. Then the 1974 Iranian oil crises and fuel economy concerns. GM abandoned the rotary but the rest of the club had already fallen apart. I believe the OMC contract was for non-automotive, watercraft and recreational vehicles. Another interesting fact, OMC was the only US company to pay CW a royalty.