Fans of a certain rotary-engined car know dat feel...

"I love you but I've chosen hooning!" (obrut-2002) 09/23/2014 at 10:19 • Filed to: NSU Idiots idiots everywhere rotary wankel

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Yesterday, io9 posted !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! about an organization named ISIS. Not the cut-throat, behead, mass-murder ISIS we all know and hate, but the Institute for Science and International Security. An organization that seeks to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to terrorists or states with dubious intentions. Needless to say, this US based NGO is not having the best of times at the moment.

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Fans of a now-defunct German car brand know that feel. In November 2011 a massive !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! was uncovered in Germany. For almost a decade, a group consisting of two men and a woman went on a random killing spree, murdering nine immigrants and a police officer. The group called itself the Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund (National Socialist Underground) or... NSU.

Car fans will know that NSU was a German automotive brand from Neckarsulm that existed from 1873 until Volkswagen swallowed it in the late 60's, eventually merging it with Auto Union to form Audi. They created such fantastic (not to mention unreliable) cars as the Ro80, beloved by Jalops all over the world for its Wankel engine.

Non car fans, not to mention people too young to remember NSU was ever a thing other than a Neo-Nazi death squad, will wonder why the fuck you like "NSU" on Facebook. A friend of mine, proud owner of a NSU Sport-Prinz, was harrassed by a group of people in Göttingen, for wearing a black shirt with the NSU logo on it. On car forums, there were stories of people having their NSU's windshield smashed.

Three years later the situation has gotten a bit better, but my friend says the NSU Fanclub still has to send out pre-fabricated emails that explain that they are fans of the Neckarsulm Motorenwerke and not supporters of a terrorist entity.

505Turbeaux > I love you but I've chosen hooning! 09/23/2014 at 10:25

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what rotary car? :) I love the Ro80 but the Wankel spider has to be my favorite NSU. Apex seals be damned!

ly2v8-Brian > I love you but I've chosen hooning! 09/23/2014 at 10:28

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I tell ya the ignorance of people can be astounding. This NSU group, was it jus three dumbasses or a larger group?

Justin Young > I love you but I've chosen hooning! 09/23/2014 at 10:29

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"You only need to remove one letter on the back of your Polo, and you have yourself a VW PLO !"

I love you but I've chosen hooning! > ly2v8-Brian 09/23/2014 at 10:46

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Unfortunately, the National Socialist Underground was a conspiracy with wide-spread connections of tinfoil hat proportions. There were connections to the Ministry of the Interior that had moles planted in various Neo-Nazi cells. In a tit-for-tat the moles exchanged relatively unimportant information on the fascist scene, for funds, information etc that they then passed along to the Underground. It was a cluster-fuck of racism and incompetence that read like a bad crime novel. Until the cell was uncovered, the police suspected that the victims were killed for (non-existant) mob ties or that they were drug dealers or pimps - worst case of victim blaming. For a while, they also blamed some of the murders on the so called Phantom of Heilbronn (a city in the south of Germany). Allegedly, the Phantom was a woman of Eastern European decent whose DNA had been found on various crime scenes. Yet in the end it turned out that the cotton buds the police had used to gather DNA evidence, were contaminated with the DNA of an Eastern European factory worker.

I love you but I've chosen hooning! > 505Turbeaux 09/23/2014 at 10:52

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Truth, it's a gorgeous car. What I love about the Ro80 though, is that it's was ahead of its time design-wise. It was build in 1967 but it could have easily been a car devised in 1987.

ly2v8-Brian > I love you but I've chosen hooning! 09/23/2014 at 10:55

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Face meet palm. This shit just won't stay down.

I love you but I've chosen hooning! > ly2v8-Brian 09/23/2014 at 11:04

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The thing is, this is a cluster fuck that keeps on giving. Destruction of evidence by the police, mistreatment of foreign press officials and so on.

ly2v8-Brian > I love you but I've chosen hooning! 09/23/2014 at 11:12

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Could be worse. Could be Hungary with an actual fascist party gaining ground.

thebigbossyboss > I love you but I've chosen hooning! 10/27/2014 at 09:12

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Ugh.