Quick, name your top-ten favorite special edition pickups! We’ll wait. (insert elevator music here) Ok, the wait was worth it, most of you also have a 1991 GMC Syclone on your list, as I do. This nice example can be found here on eBay in Norristown, Pennsylvania. The current bid price is $14,300 and there is no reserve so it’s going to the high bidder.
We have seen a few Syclones here on Barn Finds over the last few years and they’re always interesting. They were made mostly in 1991, a total of 2,995 of them, in fact, but three of them were made in 1992. There were ten Marlboro Special Edition examples and at least two other special editions made by non-GM companies.
The single exhaust is something that we rarely see anymore on a “performance” car. I only put that in quotes because we see it today on all sorts of vehicles that wouldn’t normally be considered performance vehicles. We have seen Syclones that have been modified and for such a rare vehicle that’s always a shame. This example sure looks like a winner, doesn’t it?
The interior looks good and they all came with GM’s 4-speed Turbo Hydramatic 4L60 transmission, a manual wasn’t offered. I don’t see a flaw really anywhere in or on this truck, inside or out.
The engine is a 4.3L V6 which with a Mitsubishi turbocharger and Garrett intercooler produced 280 hp! That doesn’t sound like much today for what was considered a super truck 29 years ago, but my Cayenne Turbo has almost double the horsepower and is only 0.1 seconds faster from 0-60 than this 1991 Syclone is. Sigh… I could have gotten this truck and had a more interesting, “vintage” AWD vehicle that’s smaller in the garage and probably gets more than 15 mpg. I need to own one. Have any of you owned a Syclone?
what?! 60k+ miles and modified and already over $45k with 4 days left?!
sorry but this truck is worth $25-30k tops.
don’t get me wrong, it’s really nice and i’d love to have it…for about $18k ish.
got a Typhoon with same miles but all stock and would happily see it go to a new home for half the current bid.
at least two fools out there
Whoa! $45,000?! Wait, what? It’s just over $15,000 now? There must have been some shenanigans with a couple of bidders.
That’s what it smells like. Good to see its back in the realm of sanity.
I had bought new a 1991 GMC Syclone. It was the 2nd one sold in the Dallas area. It was the demo of the dealerships owner (R.O. Evans Pontiac/GMC) and had about 850 miles on it at delivery to me. It had to have been one of the fastest vehicles that I’ve ever driven on the street. It sure surprised a few ZR-1 Corvettes and Turbo Porsches. I kept it for a couple of years and sold it with about 4K miles on it to a guy down in Austin. Wish that had kept it, it was a lot of fun!
Nice Gino. I worked at Evans back in 91-92. I was on the Pontiac side so I didn’t sell it to you (ha) but these and the Typhoon were definitely the hot topic on the lot. I remember the sales manager telling me to sell the Bonneville as a better alternative to a Lexus and I laughed at him but he was serious. I mean I liked the Bonneville but with all those scallops on the sides nobody was taking them serious any longer. The good old days!
Get rid of the lame harley davidson sticker on the front bumper.
It doesn’t LOOK like such a performer by today’s standards(more like a street smart late 80s Nissan truck) but I know these are fast – just not THAT fast!
A lightly mod’d version like this would most likely beat this writer’s Cayenne. Ouch – that must hurt. Imagine what it’d do to a Porsche owner’s pride to be beaten by a 29year old haywagon …
when these came out I was a service tech at a GMC dealer and they were faster then a corvette which upset them alot
It’s a shame this one has been modified. In bone stock could reach $25K. Those 60K miles must have included a lot of hot dogging because transmission has already had a rebuild. Bidding at $18K now.
Had a Syclone for four years;
the biggest problem was wondering if it would be in the parking lot when I returned from the supermarket. too many times watching kids in a Mustang circling, over and over.
With a chip it was a 12.5 second quarter. delightful. took a lot of tinkering to get it FAST. but fast it was. To adjust the turbo you had go in under the fender to get maximum boost; then again to adjust over boost.
AND
couple of encounters with the turbo Buicks Grand Nationals that wanted to race in traffic.
so now i drive a SSR Chevy
I wonder if I could take an old S-10 pickup truck and just drop in an engine that gets 280 hp and make my own Syclone? The base v-6 or 2.7 liter 4-cylinder from their new trucks get at least that much power.
Did they really only have 280 hp? What driveline improvements would I need to make? Can I call it a Cyclone, to show I’m hip but also know how to spell words?
I have a friend who has never been without one of these, since they were new. When one got too many miles, he searched the country ,for a low mile one buy it and would do it again, when that one got too many miles. He lives in the foot hills outside of Denver Co. and needed a 4 wheel or AWD vehicle, and this was the only truck that was fast, fun and could get through the snow when neccesary. I got to drive it several times and it could peg the fun meter. Maybe by todays standards its not that fast, but I would mind having one
I am an old man (78) driving a young man’s truck , 2001 S-10 Xtreme Short body sport side black . . Bought it new . . 180 horse power was all I could get . . . 280 horse power would make me feel young again . . . My wife’s 05 Avalon has 280 . . It hauls . .
At least this one looks nice compared to the one I just found on Craigslist in Guam! You heard that right – Guam. The guy wants 15k for it, and it looks like it has been sitting for a while. Turbo doesn’t work. Seller says it runs and drives. I don’t know anyone who would fork out that much for a vehicle in such condition, and top off the cost of shipping it back to the Continental US. Would someone pay that much for it in Guam? I heard that electricity is expensive there, and expect to pay double for things such as groceries, hygiene items, etc. So maybe this paying double the amount for things there also applies to cars and trucks?
Lived on Guam for a year (actually building local kit- and race cars there!) Main problem is humidity: I would need a whole lot of underbody pictures to feel safe buying this one!
Do they have a local strip to race cars like this syclone or just winding roads that can be utilized at the drivers discretion. Heard it rains a lot during monsoon season which can be awhile so one must have a vehicle there.