Manufacturer NSU Motorenwerke Predecessor Delphin I/II | Also called Dolphin III Class Streamliner | |
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Engine 499 cc, 4-cycle supercharged parallel twin Top speed 210.64 mph (338.99 km/h) | ||
The NSU Delphin III streamliner motorcycle set the motorcycle land speed record in 1956. Wilhelm Herz rode the machine to 211.4 miles per hour (340.2 km/h) at Bonneville Speedway in Utah, to break 200 mph (320 km/h) for the first time. Its fairing, designed in a wind tunnel at University of Stuttgart (then Stuttgart Technical College), gave it a drag coefficient of 0.19. The same engine powered Herz to a 1951 world speed record, with a less efficient frame/fairing, the Delphin I. The engine used an unusual rotary supercharger related to NSU's eventual development of the Wankel engine. In the supercharger, both a trochoidal inner rotor and epitrochoidal outer rotor spun around a stationary shaft.
References
NSU Delphin III Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA