1992 GMC Typhoon

I'm doing something I rarely do. I'm drinking a beer. It's not that I don't drink, I just don't like beer. But, this is a "home brew" from a friend and she said I would "really like it". She was wrong. (For those of you wondering... I don't actually write the posts at 6-something in the morning, I just post them at that time. I'm not having beer for breakfast.)

Anyway, since I'm drinking a beer I thought I'd write about an American truck. A very fast American truck. Somehow beer and American trucks seem to go together...

In my opinion, there are only a handful of SUVs that will become collector's vehicles in the near future. The Typhoon is one of them. We may never see another vehicle like this again.

In a stroke of genius and daring, GMC took their somewhat mundane 4.3 liter 6 cylinder S10 Jimmy and bolted a turbocharger to it. They then beefed up the rest of the engine with different pistons, main caps, head gaskets, intake manifolds, exhaust manifolds and the 48mm twin-bore throttle body from the 5.7 GM small-block V8 engine.

Not satisfied with just dropping a powerful engine in the vehicle, they gave it AWD (65% rear 35% front), an improved suspension and standard ABS brakes.

This is an SUV that can run with Ferraris and Corvettes. The "official" HP number is 280, but it's rumored that these engines put out 300 HP or more. 60 MPH comes in 5.0 seconds and it could do a quarter-mile run in 14.1 seconds at 95 mph. That's not only impressive for a boxy V6 SUV, that's impressive for anything on 4 wheels.

GMC tastefully modified the body with a front air dam and body kit. It's noticeable, but not overly flashy.

There were less than 5000 of these made during its 2 year run. (GMC gave a similar treatment to it's S10 pick-up truck and called it the Syclone). Over the years many Typhoons found their way into the hands of people who over modified them or under maintained them, making this 52,000 mile truck a nice find. It's completely stock and well maintained.

With GM having done so many things wrong in the past 3 decades, it's sometimes hard to remember that they were capable of doing some things very right. The GMC Typhoon was one of them.

Click here to see the eBay listing for this 1992 GMC Typhoon.

Click here to find SyTy.org, "The Official Home of ITSA - International Syclone Typhoon Owners Association"

A MotorWeek review of the 1992 Typhoon...

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