Legacy of the Syclone and Typhoon

Podcast Episode: 0259
Why don't we still have a GMC performance Truck?

​     What if a pickup truck could actually outpace a sports car? Join us as we unlock the thrilling saga of the GMC Syclone and Typhoon, two extraordinary machines that redefined the limits of what trucks could achieve in the early 1990s. 

       Whoever said you can't show up at a street race with a truck? You really don't know how fast a truck can really get, and we all know that Lamborghini built a truck before one of the fastest accelerating trucks out there. But that's not what we're here to talk about today, oh God, no. We're here because one of the top truck manufacturers in the entire world decided to shake up the world, just like they did with the Buick GNX in the 1980s. General Motors decided to put the world on its feet when they released both the Syclone and Typhoon onto the world stage. Yes, the GMC Syclone and Typhoon A performance truck that could beat a Ferrari in a drag race and still be able to carry an entire keg Hell, a multitude of kegs to the party. For all those people out there, who think having this amazing Ferrari is the God's gift to automobiles has never sat behind the wheel of a 1991 GMC Syclone and hit the gas. One of the most powerful midsize trucks of all time. We're here to talk about one of the greatest products ever to come out of GM's stable, the Syclone-Typhoon Twins, and how they changed the aftermarket world. Welcome back to the AutoLooks podcast.
 
      I am your host, as always, the doctor to the automotive industry, Mr. Everett Jay, coming to you from our host website at AutoLooks.net. If you haven't been there, stop by check it out. Read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings. Go to the Corporate Links website page. Big or small, we have them all Car companies from around the globe all available on one main location, the AutoLooks.net website. On the corporate links tab at the top of the page, just click it. I'll click the history or even the help tab too, and you can find more pages from amazing things from around the world. 3d tuning is one of my favorite ones, where you can build your own aftermarket tuner vehicles. So, if you want to, after listening to this podcast, go to 3D tuning. We got a link on the help tab on AutoLooks.net that'll bring you to their website so you could build your own GMC Syclone or Typhoon.
 
     The AutoLooks podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by Podbean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email over at email at AutoLooks.net. So, like I said in the beginning, the GMC Syclone and Typhoon twins some of the coolest trucks you would ever see Like literally built off a GMC Sonoma. This was literally what showcased 2-box design in its best format. It essentially was what every child drew as a pickup truck. When you see the original Sonoma’s as standard base model pickup trucks, that's what you think the most boring, bland things the world has ever seen, like how the Dakota had a couple sharper edges and even the Ranger had more curves on it. This is not what it did. 

       Well, after impressing tons of people with their turbocharged GNX in the 1980s, a group of individuals coming over from Project Black Midnight decided to work on something even better. GMC wanted to set the world on fire and prove that you didn't need to buy an Italian sports car to go fast, especially in truck-hungry America. Americans know that they could build some of the most powerful vehicles in the world and they know they could build performance. Hell. California is essentially where aftermarket industry started. It was born and bred on the mean streets of Detroit and Los Angeles. Big burly V8s from the muscle car days. Those days were behind us, you got to remember. We just went through a gas crisis in the 70s, an economic fallout in the 1980s, and now, with the introduction of computer systems, things were changing and with that, GMC needed to change and it needed to prove to the world that their pickup trucks were more than just this horrible, bland two-box design. For God's sakes. They had the Camaro and the Corvette. They gave us some amazing products Produced by Production Automotive Services, or PAS, the same company who credited with making the 1989 Pontiac Turbo.
 
        PAS decided to take upon themselves a project in Troy, Michigan, to build the fastest production truck in the world. They were going to take the most boring granny-style pickup truck and turn it into something that could literally stare down a Ferrari GTO and win. Oh yeah, its aerodynamic package was some of the worst out there, but this damn thing was going to be fast. And in 1991, the project finally showcased to the world gave us just that the fastest midsize pickup truck the world had ever seen at that point in time. The fastest pickup truck the world had ever seen at that point in time. The fastest pickup truck the world had ever seen, with an all-wheel drive high performance system. This little mid-sized pickup truck was able to stick to the road like glue and keep your moving. And it's funny because it only came from a 4.3-liter turbo v6 engine that pumped out 280 horsepower. In today's day and age, the Corvette is now pushing over a thousand horsepower.
 
        And this little truck, 280 from a V6. It did zero to 60 in 5.3 seconds and a quarter mile in 13.4 seconds at 98 miles per hour. Oh yeah, it was going well. And just how good was it? Well, it was governed or limited to top out at 124 miles per hour. Take that limiter off and people can have gone even faster. But 124 miles per hour in a pickup truck was unheard of even in 1991. You have to remember, at that point in time there was literally only a handful of vehicles that had surpassed the 200 mile per hour barrier in production on the road and gm was doing 124 miles an hour with a pickup truck. Now, eventually that top speed would be beaten out by nearly 190 miles per hour set by the dodge ram srt10. But you got to remember that was a b10 from a viper jamming underneath the hood of a pickup truck. No wonder it was going fast. Even the quad cab one still did about 180 miles an hour.
 
      But this little bad boy, 124 miles an hour, 5.3 seconds, 0-60 for a mid-sized pickup truck in 1991. The average pickup truck at that point in time is getting about 0-60 times in 10 seconds. It was clocking out just over 100 miles an hour, if you can even get there. Most vehicles literally went to about 180 kilometers an hour. That was about it. This thing was cracking even higher now.
 
      There were problems with it when you really think about it. It had an automatic transmission, but all-wheel drive pickup trucks at this point in time were only subjected to rear-wheel-drive layout and, still being body-on-frame products, they were heavy and we all know from the muscle car days big, heavy body-on-frame vehicles are great in straight-line action, but these things can't handle worse shit on the freaking track. Huh, gm was going to prove to you that they could do this. Why? By utilizing a Mitsubishi TD06 17C turbocharger, this V6 would blow the doors off anything. Essentially, utilizing technology from Japan merged together with an American-built pickup truck, the Syclone was about to take the world by storm. It ran from 1991.
 
       Only GM had no major plans to keep the Syclone in high production volumes. There's essentially 2,998 Syclones ever made, with three of those being made in 1992. That's it, 1992. Technically there's three from 1992 model year, but in all reality all Syclones are branded as a 1991 pickup truck because GM only wanted to come out to the world and showcase what they could do. 

​        They put tons of money and tons of effort into this. They just needed to recoup what they spent on this project and prove to the world that this pickup truck could go as fast as anything else. They upgraded the head, gaskets, intake manifolds, exhaust manifolds and throttle body from a 5.7-liter small block V8 into this tiny 4.3-liter V6 turbo. They strapped on a BorgWarner 4472 all-wheel drive transfer case with split torque and 35 percent of power from the front and 65 percent power to the rear. Even though it was using an all-wheel drive system, they still would put more power to the ground on the rear wheels than they would on the front, but for stability they needed to have the power on the front as well. It's one of the first midsize pickup trucks to ever gain four-wheel anti-lock brakes.
 
Because you got to think about it, you got to stop this beast. This thing may be as fast as a Ferrari, but it weighs more than a Ferrari, utilizing gauges borrowed from a Pontiac Sunbird Turbo of all places. The Syclone looked mean. It looked like it was ready for life at the track, but in all reality, it was ready for life at the track, but in all reality, it was made for life on the streets.
 
       They were going to be offering a multitude of more colors, but because they decided to can the truck for 1992 and move on to another project, its sibling, the typhoon, essentially all the Syclones are black, except for 150 Syclones that were exported to Saudi Arabia. Now, essentially 113 of them only made it to Saudi Arabia, and these were the Saudi Syclones. Their differences was a metric dash cluster, leaded fuel chip and a resonator in place of the catalytic converter, because over there they didn't have to worry about all that crap that we had to do over here. At the end of the entire project remember, you've got to think about it 150 of them were supposed to be exported. Now, you have to think about it. Saudi Arabia market wasn't as big as they originally thought it was. You got to remember, 113 of them were shipped over there, but 31 of them were never sold. Now, in all, there was 150 Syclones made of the Saudi Arabia package called the Saudi Syclones, 31 of them out of the 150, came back to North America and they were sold at a discounted rate. And remember, there's 113 of them that went to Saudi Arabia to be sold. But these ones, these 31 Saudi ones, came back to the United States were sold at a reduced price back in 1991 for $12,500.
 
       Out of the remaining 69 stockpile that they never sold in 1991 before they moved on to their secondary product, were basically shipped throughout Europe. A small amount of them ended up in a German compound where they were eventually sold on a make-or-take option. See, German trucks were sold very cheap because at that point in time, owning American vehicles in the European marketplace, nobody wanted them and because of all the tight regulations they had for fuel consumption and hydrocarbons in the European marketplace these vehicles would not qualify. So, they literally sat at a German impound lot for years. Eventually, like I said, being sold on a make us an offer. They were all sold at massive discounted rates, even less than the lottery ones that were sold off to the GM employees back in the US.
 
      Today the Saudi Syclones that made their way into German marketplaces are some of the rarest in the world and now they command six-figure sales. Oh yeah, they're worth a fortune. You got to think about it. How many pickup trucks, especially North American-built pickup trucks, will you ever find in a European marketplace? Makes them worth even more Now, out of the ones that actually did make it to Saudi Arabia and get sold into their marketplaces. Most of those are now held by collectors because they know what they're worth and because of their rarity, even on a mass scale of less than 3,000 of them ever being built. These Syclones literally just become timepieces as an art display. And, as we talked about in our art cars, the Syclone and Typhoon layout should literally be classified as an artistic rendition. Sure, they're simple, they're boring, they're bland, but they get their point across and people automatically know what it is Now. 

        In 1992, a few of the last remaining Syclones, built right before GM pulled the plug on the project, were painted Marlboro red and thrown into a grand prize pool for 10 people to win in a contest in 1992. You essentially had to fill out a form of the questionnaire to enter the contest. Pretty simple, right? They're custom ones that they had. Now these Marlboro bad boys were made by the American Sunroof Company. If you don't know who that is, they do a lot of custom work, turning a lot of interesting vehicles into convertibles, and they did that with the Marlboro Syclone, seeing that Carroll Shelby and Dodge had both made a convertible pickup truck for sale for Chrysler Corporation, with Chrysler being the only truck only car company to ever build a convertible truck. And still build a convertible truck with the new Gladiator.
 
       GMC decided to do this with the Syclones. The 10 they gave away with the Marlboro were painted in jet red Marlboro, okay, and they had a target top. Oh yeah, showcasing their coolness. With that target top they had a Gideon hard toneau cover, a PPG Hot Licks red paint you could spot from anywhere a custom Momo evolution steering wheel, Sony sound system, stainless steel, Borla exhaust system, Beltec suspension, which essentially dropped this truck down by three inches compared to a standard Syclone. Recaro leather seats with Simpson 5-point harnesses to prove to the world that you need to go fast and a Pro-MPG performance chip to give you an added boost of power. These things were seriously the most balls Syclones ever made and there's only 10 of them in existence. They were penned by Larry Shinoda, the designer of the Corvette Stingray and Boss Mustang, so you know this thing was going to look good. It included a full amount of production trucks as they started out the standard trucks and essentially repurposed them.
 
      For the winner, the winners, these 10 very lucky people got to travel on an all-expense paid trip. Day of racing alongside the IndyCar team pit crew for Marlboro Racing, which would be Penske back in the day full VIP access, tours, photo sessions with the Marlboro Indy team and a whole swag bag of apparel. You literally went home with not just a truck but a whole swag bag of apparel. You literally went home with not just a truck, but a whole shit ton of cool stuff, and only 10 of them in existence Today.
 
      The Marlboro Syclone is one of the most sought-after pickup trucks from the 90s. You could tell me that those RT Durango’s or even the Convertible Dakotas are sought-after, but no, the Marlboro Syclone, with 10 of them only kicking around, makes them sought after, and on this side of the pond, those 31 Saudi Syclones are sought after as well. So, if you're looking for some vehicles to buy and invest some money in to try and make some money off, if you can get a good deal, we're giving you some good ideas right here. So, listen up. But if you're going to do that, could you please send us an email, give us a holler, tell us about it, send us a picture. Help, we would love to see your truck. So, tend to thank your friends over at AutoLooks.net.
 
      Besides that, there was only one other rendition of the Syclones ever made which came out the year it was cut from production. In 1992, the Indy 500 decided to utilize a special PPG GMC Syclone. They thought they could drum up a little bit more interest into the vehicle and try and bring it back into production. Well, they used a special sticker package, a PPG multicolor silver, magenta and aqua paint scheme for these Indy Syclones and essentially, they were only used on May 24, 1992 at the Indy 500, only with a modified light bar molded into the roof, racing fuel cell, built-in halibut and fire suppression system, water-cooled brakes and a color-matched interior and a one-piece toneau cover. It was only to be utilized as a safety truck. Now people loved it so much that it came back and was utilized for both NASCAR and Indy races later on and even spawned its own Typhoon counterpart.
 
      But unfortunately, the original PPG Indy Syclones never hit the market because they were only used to display what could have been had the Syclone made it. It was only about 3,000 of these things kicking around and not becoming major sales only due to the fact that they were expensive trucks and at that point in time in 1991, people weren't looking at performance pickup truck. Low rider culture was out there, but low riders went slow, not fast. People wanted that mustang or Camaro, not the Syclone. In today's day and age, people look back and wonder why we didn't buy these in droves, knowing that this project was going to be canceled and we were going to lose one of the most amazing pickup trucks in history and could have had indie Syclones out there. The only one in existence was retired to the gm heritage collection after its use. But, as most things go, gm likes to sell off a lot of their heritage stuff to personal collections. Instead of building a massive museum and making tons of money off of people who want to come and see some of the greatest General Motors vehicles of all time, they sell it off to private investors. A private collector bought it in 2009 for 66 000 in 2009. Gotta remember, in 2009 people still weren't thinking about the Syclones as a cool pickup truck. We're just now starting to think about it because nostalgia has finally crept up until the early 90s and we're starting to see stuff from the 90s as being cool, and that truck was 90s and was cool. So, in today's day and age, that's a valuable commodity. 

       GM decided to pull the plug on the Syclone only for one main reason they didn't sell a ton of Syclones because most people with pickup trucks weren't thinking of performance pickup trucks and, like I said, the only other aftermarket industry that people were looking at was, trust me, chevy was not lowrider culture approved. People wanted Mazda’s, Nissans, Toyotas, hell, they even wanted Ford Rangers, more so the GMC Sonoma’s. So, the Syclone didn't really have a market that wasn't a big mid-sized truck market that demanded a performance truck like this. But GM, knowing that they had built this amazing beast of a truck, needed to keep it going and for that they brought out its most famous sibling of all time, the GMC Typhoon, hitting the market for only two years. Essentially, they sold less over the course of the two years, if you combine them, uh, than what the Syclones would have sold in one year, selling only 4,697 Typhoons across two production years. The typhoon essentially wasn't as big a success as they thought it would be. But the reasoning for keeping it around for a lot longer is people wanted the Syclones but they were all gone.
 
        An SUV market was starting to take off. Between 92 and 93, ford gave us the Explorer. It started showcasing the slow rise of the SUV craze, essentially, before SUVs became big and cool vehicles that everyone wanted, 20 years before the market literally blew up, GMC was there with the Typhoon, the fastest production SUV the world had ever seen. They essentially built six pre-production vehicles.
 
       In 1991, during the Syclone's reign, they wanted to go one step further with the Typhoon, though. They wanted to not just be super fast, but they wanted it to be a bit better ride. You got to remember this one's got four seats, not just two. The Typhoon actually featured an air open, self-leveling rear suspension system to make the ride seem like you're on a cloud, a cloud that's traveling at 130 miles an hour through the sky. So, its times for the Typhoon were very similar to that of the Syclone sibling 0-60, 5.3 seconds quarter mile and 14.1 at 95 miles an hour. So, a little bit slower there, but just as cool.
 
       The one thing that the Typhoon did get over its Syclone sibling was more colors. You have to remember the Syclone was in black. Unless you got a Saudi Syclone, a Marlboro one or that one special person that managed to get the PPG Indy pace truck, you only got black. Well, the Typhoon came in 13 color combinations, with Midnight Black being the most popular amongst all of them. So, the Typhoon essentially everybody still just wanted a black. 

      ​But again, it's the early 90s and everybody's thinking it's still about muscle cars how the import scene started to come in. We're getting Supra's and RX-7s, we're getting all these cool sports cars, and they're everywhere. And this is a truck that costs double what I could pay to get a Supra at this point in time. So why the hell would I even think about getting this thing when I could just go out and buy a cool sports car, hell one that even has back seats in it and I don't look like I'm you know, grandpa just going out of the store? You got to remember trucks were not a cool commodity in the beginning of the 90s. GMC started this and then Ford got into it and then Dodge got into it real later on, the performance truck ring really didn't heat up until the first Fast and Furious movie, when everybody saw that Ford Lightning, that Paul Walker was driving, it was like, oh my God, that's a performance truck, that's a Mustang truck. Well, I got to have one of those.
 
      And then performance trucks came out. It was 10 years too early for both the Syclone and the Typhoon. Today we think we really need these things to come out. And well, there are aftermarket companies that will do this for you, but not you know to the exact scale that you should actually have one at. Today we don't have any major performance trucks. Oh, you can fight me on that and say you got the ZR2 Bison and the AT4X and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, yeah. Yeah, there are performance orientated products for GMC trucks today, but they're all made for the off-road circuit, not for street race. But you have to remember we're not allowed to street race anymore, so trucks like this are from the past. In the end, the Syclone with its 2998 sold and the typhoon with 4697 sold really doesn't put a dent in the major aftermarket industry, but made a stand to showcase to the world that GMC could build the fastest pickup truck in the world. It could jam a turbo underneath the hood with a V6 and make this thing outperform V8 and V10 supercars. Unfortunately, GM would never live up to its code and never bring something so amazing like the Syclone out ever again. Okay, at least for the street market. 

       In 1992, to go along with the Typhoon, GMC decided to kind of keep the Syclone on the market, giving us the GMC Sonoma GT Priced at a lower price point and with the same exterior package as the Syclone. It gave people the look of having a Syclone but not having a turbocharged pickup truck that could literally eat a Ferrari for breakfast. The Sonoma GT of 1992 literally was a non-turbo version of the 4.3-liter v6. It did have a sport performance package, a lower price option than the Syclones and did come in more colors. You can find Sonoma GTs in black, red, white, aspen blue, teal and forest green, unlike the Syclone in its black-only option. But because it didn't have the performance package that the original Syclone had with it, only 806 Sonoma GTs were ever produced, kind of putting an end to the monster that they had created.
 
      You have to remember the Buick GNX was only around for a short amount of time too. Grand created. You have to remember the Buick GNX was only around for a short amount of time too. Grand National kicked it. But the GNX package that was a twin-turbo V6 that literally beat supercars from a boring, grandma-styled coupe. Gm knows how to take the most basic, boring, bland packaging and make it the coolest, fastest thing the world has ever seen, and they did that with the Syclone and the Typhoon.
 
      The GT never really brought back what the Syclone was. It gave us the appearance package of it, but it wasn't what the Syclone was. Today we kind of look forward to a future of maybe General Motors bringing it back, if the rumors are true and gm is considering bringing back the Jimmy nameplate to go up against the Wrangler, the Bronco and the Land Cruiser and hell, even the possibility of the new FJ Cruiser from Toyota and an Xterra from Nissan. If they decide to bring back the Jimmy in an actual format that it should be A body-on-frame SUV with a brand-new Canyon on the market, maybe our future holds some light for a brand new Syclone and Typhoon duo. It would be an amazing thing to see, even in a limited production. You have to remember there's a Trans Am company in the States that custom made only a few of them bandit style Camaros with GM's approval. Trans Am Depot really wanted to do that for us. Or maybe Lingenfelter can do that for us, or even Yenko. 

​      Bring us back the Syclone and Typhoon. Give us the performance product that we loved from the early 90s. With nostalgia starting to come out with 90s stuff now, maybe it's time to revisit some of these performance vehicles and cool sports cars that once graced our famous roads. Because, trust me, if I ever found one of these Syclones and Typhoons near me and it was a cheap price, we're talking like under five grand, just kicking around and it ran I would snap that thing up in an instant, knowing how powerful and fun that truck was. I would just love to sit in one of those seats of the Marlboro Syclone, look out that window and just imagine myself back in the 90s cruising around listening to a CD in my vehicle, because everybody else is still listening to tapes. I have a CD player with a banging stereo system. I was the coolest thing around and I have one of the coolest things around.
 
      So, if anyone from GM is actually listening to us, take this into consideration. You may have killed off the Camaro once again, but maybe you should give us some performance aftermarket variations of the brand-new Canyon and hell. If you're looking for a way to bring back the Typhoon, hell, use the Yukon if you really have to. But we just want to see one of these things in existence one more time. Let's give us our performance truck back. Let's give us the fire-breathing, Ferrari-eating Syclone and Typhoon duel and then maybe we'll be happy. 

        So, if you like this podcast. Please like, share or comment about it on any of the major social feeds or streaming sites that you've found the Outlooks podcast on. Click the like button at the bottom. Like, share, comment. Send this podcast out to your friends, your family, to your uncles, your aunts, anyone else that you know that owned one of those Syclones, because, trust me, it would have been the coolest thing ever. And he was made for that truck. That truck was made for him. Okay, let's just say, if you guys would help spread the word for this podcast and I could afford to go out and get one of these things, I would definitely take my uncle for a ride and let him drive the truck that was made for him.
 
      And after you've hit like, after you've commented, after you've sent us an email at email at AutoLooks.net, telling us about your favorite part of the Syclone Typhoon duo, stop by the website, read some of the reviews, check out some of the ratings. Go to the Corporate Links website page. Big or small, we have them all car companies from around the globe, all available on one website that is the AutoLooks.net website. The AutoLooks podcast is brought to you by Ecomm Entertainment Group and distributed by Podbean.com. If you'd like to get in touch with us, send us an email over at email at AutoLooks.net. So, for myself, Everett Jay, the host of the AutoLooks podcast and the owner of the AutoLooks.net website from Podbean.com and Ecomm Entertainment Group, strap yourself in for this one fun, balls deep ride. We're going to have a one of the most performance orientated kickin' ass trucks from the 90s. 

Everett J.
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