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It's no secret that the small and mid-size truck market is one of the hottest things going. But is it hot enough to lure Grand National owners past and present (part of the audience to whom GMC was targeting the Syclone) away from style, luxury and a back seat? Many of these Grand National enthusiasts were thrilled about the performance of the truck but, not sure they wanted to give up the comfort of a vehicle that seats four.

Enter the Typhoon. It has the speed of the Syclone with an upgraded four-passenger interior, dark charcoal leather seats with inflatable lumbar supports, a leather wrapped steering wheel and a myriad of other goodies.
Although it is slightly heavier than the Syclone, the Typhoon does offer more in the way of the creature comforts. This alone could lure some of the more mature
Grand National owners out of their current ride.
Features include a stereo with graphic equalizer, all of the power and remote goodies, including a keyless remote entry
system for both the doors and tail gate.
They even remembered the "toys" that require 12-volt power and included an extra cigarette lighter to accommodate two "plug in" accessories at the same.

The Syclone inspired turbocharged/intercooled Vortech V-6 produces 280 horsepower at 4,00 rpm and 350 lbs/ft of torque at 3,600 rpm. This combination with the traction of a viscous coupled all-wheel drive (35% front 65% rear) gives sub-five second zero-60 times and low 13 second quarter mile times in stock form, making the Typhoon one of the quickest production vehicles made in America today.

How about 13-second
quarter miles, .82 on the
skidpad and 67 cubic feet
of storage space?

Our first test drive in a Typhoon put it at some disadvantage. At the press announcement in the
mountains of Montana at altitudes reaching 7,000 feet, even turbo cars don't run like they do closer to sea level. Even so, the performance was quite evident as the Mitsubishi turbo compressed enough of the thin air to get us well over 10 psi boost. Even at that altitude, acceleration and high speed passing were effortless (and we had , plenty of opportunity to test those capabilities).

Even more impressive than the brute; power and swift acceleration is the superior handling at virtually any speed. We've seen all-wheel drive before; the Dodge Stealth RT, Eagle Talon TSi and most recently the Subaru Legacy (all featured in Turbo) have it, so we're well aware of its many redeeming qualities. With the Typhoon, high speed handling on good pavement shows a noticeable improvement, but when the weather turns bad the difference is amazing.

During the press announcement we were able to utilize a closed course to get an idea of some of these handling capabilities. All we can say is that "impressive" is a fitting word.

Skidpad testing of the stock Syclone has shown a .82 capability. We are currently working with Suspension Techniques and Turbo City on a project Syclone that should give some flat impressive lap times on a road course.
At the time of this writing, the Typhoon is scheduled for release in the fall of'91.

We feel that with its combination of drag strip ready performance, sports car handling and luxury appointments it will immediately target its own specialized audience, In our opinion, the Typhoon will outsell the Syclone due to the room and convenience of the "Jimmy" configuration.

By now many of the performance shops that specialize in Buick aftermarket products have purchased and are in the process of testing the Syclone to see just how much performance can be reliably and, even more important, legally obtained.

We have already heard from Kenne Bell and Turbo City that the stock pistons do not like more that 17 psi boost without additional fuel/timing modifications.

For drag racing, both Compucar and NOS have announced nitrous oxide injection kits for the Syclone that bring them off the line like a slingshot, and have already seen low-12 second times on otherwise stock vehicles.

Many of these same companies worked with us back in 1986 when the Buick performance programs were getting started, so there seems to be a certain amount of deja vu.

The only difference here is that these shops are now better educated in electronics and fule injection tuning, meaning we should see even faster evolution of performance for the Syclone and Typhoon than we saw with the Buicks.

Standard 245/50 16 tires mounted on 16 x 8-inch wheels yielded excellent traction under virtually all driving conditions. Using a tight slalom course at West Yellowstone airport to test the Typhoon's handling, we saw a very forgiving vehicle that both experienced and "not so experienced" drivers felt comfortable with.