A Junkyard Supertruck Is Way Faster Than A Real GMC Syclone For A Lot Less Money
"This thing is rowdy and crappy and awesome," says the builder
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.