1978 Flug K-Series mk2As Flug expanded to the United States in 1978, the main introduction was to be made by Flug Stolz. But a backup plan was needed as the American market was so much different to the European one. A simple enough recipe by which most cars were built in the states encouraged Flug to create an affordable chassis to better suit American tastes. Once again the engine problem has arised, but this time it could not be solved by the Toledo Ironworks. The car that has been designed in just under a year has come out so heavy that even the Flug engineers and marketers started doubting their company's values. The solution was found in Patriot Motor Force, a young company bound to deliver performance to the masses. Sadly Flug has not really realized that their idea of "performance" radically differed from the ideas at Patriot Motor Force. In mid 77 first flug K-series mk2 has made it to the Patriot factory, where an engine was to be designed for it what came back shocked Flug greatly but there was too much already invested to pull the plug, so the car saw production.
Powered by a 7.9 liter pushrod V8, mostly based off a Chevy LS5, and redlining at 5000 rpm the land yacht that was considered "mid size sedan" by the American standards came equipped with a 3 speed GM TH400. The engine developed 372hp, and allowed for wheelspin in every of it's 3 available gears, while returning close to 30l/100km, draining it's fuel tank in just over 300km of city driving. The ignition and fuelling of the carburetted monster was tweaked by the Flug engineers before the engines went into the cars at the factory in Ohio, and in production trim developed a bit less extreme 321hp. Despite it's severe problems behaving well at any application of throttle the car gained popularity, mostly due to the fact that it was actually quite a bit cheaper than most similar sized sedans while boasting high quality premium interior and surpassed it's competitors in safety. Costing at half what a Flug Stolz did, the K79 did quite well and outsold the Flug Stolz at 2 to 1, chewing quite a bit into the premium market, while seriously performing in more affordable and sporty segments. By 1980 The popularity of the car grew enough for Flug to start thinking of discontinuing the Flug Stolz.
1981 saw a restyle for the K79, following a restyle of the Stolz. The v8 engine was not dropped, but was now one of two available engines for the car. The 482 v8 saw a revision, and an even tamer version was ordered, now sporting a regular chevy crankshaft, instead of the forged stroker that came with the 1978 version. This dropped the volume to 7.4 and power to 318hp, which did absolutely nothing to the performance, as it remained exactly the same while improving the economy by almost 1 liter / 100km. The k74 version has sold well, but now had some opposition from itself, in guise of K27, with a newly re-designed i6 engine, to which Americans have warmed up once they knew that the consumption drops 3 times if you lose only 2 cylinders. The 81 version of the FL6-27IT engine sported new ball bearing turbocharger and a new fuel and ignition settings, and while the output dropped by 10hp to 120hp, the torque could rise to 240nm, which now arrived as soon as 2k rpm. The cheap price, premium interior, and now two engines have prompted Flug to switch it's attention to K series exclusively, shutting down the production of Stolz in USA.
Among the improvements of the 81 version, a Borg Warner T-10 4-speed was now available for the K74, to match the 4 speed auto on the K27. 255mm wide rear tires were also introduced finally taming the beastly v8 and improving both handling and braking performance drastically. The K series however was deemed a lost cause for the European market, where it would barely fit in the busy traffic of the small cities, so the K-series became an US-only version of Flug, which never saw European shores from generation 2 and onwards.
Restomodded Flug K74 in modern day USA.
Patriot Motor Force page