Motor Trend
In the 92 model year, GMC will bring to market a hot clone of the Syclone turbocharged pickup, called the Typhoon. The Syclone is a heavily massaged GMC S-model baby pickup powered by a 4.3-liter turbocharged V-6 putting down 280 horsepower through a four-speed automatic to all four wheels all the time. The Typhoon should be a big seller. The Syclone performed 0-60-mph runs in 4.9 seconds, which is terrific. But it’s also a two-seater with no trunk utility unless you deliver newspapers in it. That’s how the Syclone’s designers intended it to be, so it represents no flaw. Buy a Suburban if you want to haul heavy stuff. The Typhoon, with the same awe-inspiring powerplant, will be somewhat slower than a Syclone for the extra weight demanded by a four-door mini-Blazer, but it will have room for four to five passengers plus their luggage. Price guesses put the truck as high as the $30,000-plus bracket.
In other Syclone news, the Syclone LSR, a race-prepped GMC Sonoma pickup, became the first truck in history to break the 200-mph barrier at the Bonneville Salt Flats. The LSR, driven by high-speed veteran Don Stringfellow, achieved a one-way top end of 210.069 mph and an official two-way average of 204.145. The powerplant used was a naturally aspirated 5-liter V-6 engine, bored out from the stock displacement of 4.3 liters. On the dynamometer, the engine produced 549 horsepower at 7200 rpm and 412 foot-pounds of torque at 6000 rpm.
