The legendary GMC Syclone was just about the fastest thing you could buy in 1991 with 280 horsepower from a 4.3-liter turbocharged V6 and all-wheel drive for traction from a dig. In head-to-head tests the early-90s supertruck was quicker than a five-times-as-expensive Ferrari when new. In Car and Driver testing the Syclone ran a 5.3-second 0-60 time and a 14.1-second quarter mile time. Can you beat that with, like, five grand and a dream?
Unfortunately those $20,000 trucks are now worth closer to $70,000 for a perfect example, and there are way cheaper ways to go fast than that. Tony Angelo from the Stay Tuned YouTube channel set out to see if he could build a bargain basement junkyard dog that could haul ass, too.
Tony started with a $1,000 Chevrolet S10, which is the same small truck platform GMC used to build the Syclone. From there he hauled a 4.3-liter V6 and the all-wheel drive drivetrain from an Astro van. Put all that together with a $700 Amazon turbo kit and you’ve got a home-built Syclone killer for about five percent of the cost of an original.
It’s obvious from the video that Tony’s way of going fast comes with a few frayed edges. The S10, dubbed SykeClone, is a rough and tumble cobbled-together monster with Corvette wheels and sticky tires. The factory-built machine is a much more conservative and refined ride, but when straight-line performance is the only metric on measure, the shitbox delivers.
By today’s standards a quarter mile in the 14s is hardly something to brag about. You can go grab a base Mustang and run those kinds of times, or just about any standard electric family SUV. That said, same for same, you can build an early-90s Ferrari-beater for pennies if you’re dedicated enough. Maybe I’m just easily impressed, but this whole thing kicks ass.