How Fast Were They...
 

Hi everyone, I have always been fascinated with the Cyclones and Typhoons... Was wondering if anyone out there has owned 1 of these little beasts? Been watching videos of these trucks totally kicking butt on the street and at the strip... Hard to believe they were actually that fast!!!

They were pretty quick back in the day. 285 HP as I recall. I don't know of there times in the 1/4 mile or top speed, though. The Extremes, not nearly as fast. They had the exact same drive train and HP as any Blazer or S10.

Google tells me 0-60 in 4.3 and the quarter mile in 13.4 @ 94 mph. So, not supercar fast, but definitely quick for a street car

That was for the syclone, the typhoon comes in a little slower

For their time (when they were released) they could hold their own off the line next to sports cars of the day, even when compared to Ferrari's and such.

For example, the 91 Ferrari 348 made around 300 hp with it's N/A 3.4l (only just a smidgen more than the Syclone's turbo 4.3l), but it's 0-60 was claimed to be a little over 5.4s. Slower off the line when compared to the Syclone's 4.3s (ironic time stamp considering the engine displacement :D) because the Syclone had AWD on it's side, but the Syclone would never hang with the 348's rated top speed of 170mph lol. Even if the Syclone COULD do 170, I don't know what I would WANT to in a truck... Hell I wouldn't want to do 170 in a Ferrari from 1991 LOL!

I also coulndn't see a pickup carving lines around a track like a Ferrari, AWD or not...

So it really depends on what you call "fast". They would never hold a candle to the wind compared to today's modern sport cars, or even cars of the early 2000's for that mater. But for their time, they were little monsters.

The Typhoon was pretty quick off the line... in a straight line... for a 4,000 lb automatic truck at least. The Typhoon had a 1/4 mi time of 14.1, which isn't exactly much to brag about. It was also terrible off-road and couldn't tow anything at all (its tow rating was literally 0 lbs.), which made it not only a pretty crummy sports car but a pretty crummy truck too. It was also difficult and expensive to maintain meaning that few survived, which is perhaps among the reasons it's kind the stuff of legend today.

It was indeed compared to the Ferrari 348ts by Car and Driver who noted that the Typhoon had a slightly better 0-60 time. C&D however failed to mention that the 348ts was an "affordable" midmarket naturally aspirated Ferrari model and that the 348ts would still trounce the Typhoon in anything but short, straight lines. The '93 Ferrari 348ts also had a 1/4 mi time of 13.9 which then rendered the whole conversation moot.

It was just a novelty curiosity and C&D bit hard on it because they thought that was what their readership wanted to see and would sell issues. If you find yourself getting confused, note that C&D article even lists that terrible, awful, TERRIBLE Delphi AM/FM/Cassette audio system with graphic equalizer as among the "amenities" that supposedly meant it belonged up there with luxury vehicles. So they were kind of pushing it to say the very least. :)

Don't get me wrong, I still daydream about putting a supercharger in mine too, but the originals weren't supercars by anything but the very loosest interpretations in the best case scenarios. They were just something cool that made for good magazine copy.

The 2000's Blazer Xtreme submodels don't even belong in the same conversation either; the Xtreme was mostly just trying to pre-feed what the aftermarket community was doing at the time by dropping the suspension, deleting the roof rack etc. with little to no actual effort applied to performance.