"Blake Noble" (no-bull)
01/31/2014 at 16:08 • Filed to: None
14
23|
"Blake Noble" (no-bull)
01/31/2014 at 16:08 • Filed to: None | 14
| 23 |
General Motors has been a definite linchpin of automotive Americana for over a century. At one point in time, it was the world's largest and most profitable automaker, its corporate presence dominating markets from Boston to Bavaria, from Sydney to Shanghai. The only other American conglomerate that was more globally ubiquitous with its product during this so-called "golden era" was Coca-Cola. GM has even contributed to significant milestones in human history during its one-hundred and six years on our third dirtball from the Sun — the Lunar Roving Vehicle used in the Apollo 15, 16, and 17 moon missions was developed, in part, by the Detroit-based motoring leviathan.
For every galvanized moment of triumphant prudence beaming through the company's long biography, GM has also proven to be equally as precipitous. You could devote page after page to the long shitlist of malevolent cars its built and poor business decisions its made and wind up with a New York Times best seller. Just ask Bob Lutz.
We're not here, however, to discuss the remarkable horror stories of two year-old Chevrolet Vegas with rusty floorpans and knee-jerk Ross Perot tie-ins. What we're here to discuss is the direct result of Mr. Smith telling Mr. Jones next door what Consumer Reports printed this month and to spend his hard-earned money on a Japanese import; the company's cumulative "kiss my ass" response to middle-class dinner table discussions about how poorly GM builds its uncompetitive cars and why the next family sedan will be a Honda. No, I'm not talking about the turbocharged V6-powered Buick Grand National and GNX muscle cars that managed to stir the loins of every middle-aged NASCAR spectator during the dawn of the Intimidator days. I'm talking about the GMC Syclone pickup truck.
Before we dig in on GM's Van Gogh moment, let's continue to bird walk just a little first to better understand an essential element of what made the Syclone tick. Like General Motors, the pickup truck is another staple of motoring culture here in America. For the hard-working contractors, electricians, and plumbers across the nation, they're as much of a rolling toolbox as they are an actual tool. For other individuals with an urban cowboy personality disorder, they're a tasteless fashion accessory that they believe adds to their artificial "work-bred, work tough" aura. There is a third category of truck buyers who neither use their pickups for work or to impress the hottest piece of trailer trash chain smoking Virginia Slims out on the patio of some backwater Dairy Queen. These pickup owners treat their purchases as performance vehicles .
A pickup is typically a poor substitute for an actual enthusiast's car, regardless of its format or flavor. Sure, with a big stump-pulling engine out front blowing exhaust fumes out of two pipes around the back and a stripped out interior, it can perfectly imitate the barren charm of an old muscle car. But it isn't one. If you've ever chastised an old Ford Mustang for its poor self-discipline on a winding road, every fiber of your being would loathe what a truck would do in the same situation. Burdened by their bulk and genetics, most big-engined pickups really aren't sports or muscle car fast in a straight line, either.
Sport trucks are totally useless as performance cars then. And, once the owner of a sport truck goes the extra mile and lowers the suspension and starts removing most of the other elements that makes a pickup a pickup, it becomes more and more useless for actual work in the process. What this yields is a vehicle that looks like a truck, handles and typically performs worse than a car, and isn't even good for hauling three bags of mulch home from Lowe's.
What does all of that have to do with the GMC Syclone? Almost everything. The Syclone was the first sports pickup that managed to completely transcend most of those negatives, and in the process rebelliously ripping up the rule book on what constituted a performance vehicle. That said, it still wasn't much for actual work — its payload capacity was just a few hundred pounds and it couldn't tow anything. It wasn't a usable truck. So why exactly would you buy one then?
Pull up the spec sheet and it suddenly becomes clear. With a Mitsubishi turbocharger and Garrett intercooler on board, the 4.3 liter V6 would afford you 280 horsepower and 350 lb-ft of torque. While this isn't that impressive in light of the naturally aspirated V6 engines we have today, those numbers were a very big deal back in 1991.
The deal gets even bigger from there. A 1991 Acura NSX was good to reach 60 miles an hour from a dead stop in about 5 seconds. The contemporary Ferrari 348 could get there in a little over 5 seconds. The GMC in stock form managed to hit 60 in 4.6 seconds . You can guess what the sticker price on the NSX and 348 was back in 1991. The Syclone was faster than either of the two of them and GM would only charge you $26,000 dollars, which was half the cost of an original Corvette ZR-1 and not much more coin than an IROC-Z Camaro.
Starting to see the big picture now? This was something that looked like a truck that could pull a Ferrari's pants down around its ankles and then point and laugh about what it was keeping tucked in its underwear. Even today — over twenty years later — it's no slouch and can almost keep pace with a new Camaro ZL-1. Aside from the numb steering gear, it could handle a winding road even in poor driving conditions without drama, thanks to it's all-wheel drive layout. And it wasn't exclusive to the elite, powerful and wealthy.
Even more remarkable is that the Syclone, after you strip away its low-profile tires, the turbo, and its bulging body-cladding, is really something made up of bits and pieces. That 4.3 liter V6 was the same motor that you would find under the hood of a typical run-of-the-mill S10 or Sonoma pickup truck. The all-wheel drive system was from the Chevrolet Astro minivan. The Syclone's unique instrument cluster was actually borrowed from a turbo-powered Pontiac Sunbird.
General Motors built 2,995 examples of the GMC Syclone for 1991. Production was set to continue for 1992 alongside the related GMC Jimmy-based Typhoon with an expanded color palette that included unheard of colors like white and red, but the plug was pulled at the last minute for really no good reason.
I can't think of anything that GM's built since that has been so totally outrageous. The Corvette and Camaro have always been upfront and honest about what they were made to do; their mission statement is printed right on the packaging. The GMC Syclone, on the other hand, was something completely left-field, a hairy-chested yell at the heart of Americans who wrote them off as being incapable of doing anything interesting, well-done, or innovative. While it still wasn't enough to rectify GM's dismal business sense and atone for the horrible cars it built, and while its status as a performance titan didn't carry enough of a halo effect to drag buyers it had forever lost to import builders back into showrooms, it will still forever have a place in automotive history as GM's best "fuck you" ever.
(Video from !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! )
Shift24
> Blake Noble
01/31/2014 at 16:37 |
|
I liked the Typhoon better, you could take 3 people on one hell of a ride. Though slower than the Syclone, i think it just looks better. The main reason that these two were shut down was what you touched on earlier, they were faster than the Corvette. And being faster than GMs staple Preformace car was a no no and cause a stir. So like what they did in the pass get something right and then discontinue it. And they must have been good if Clarkson and his 90s hair liked it
|
Blake Noble
> Shift24
01/31/2014 at 16:41 |
|
Huh, your post disappeared and reappeared there for a moment. What the hell?
|
Shift24
> Blake Noble
01/31/2014 at 16:46 |
|
its back up Kinja isnt liking me right now
|
Shift24
> Blake Noble
01/31/2014 at 16:52 |
|
yeah kinja is being weird
leicester
> Blake Noble
01/31/2014 at 16:55 |
|
Yes, and it led to on of Car & Driver's more amusing head to head comparos:
http://www.sportmachines.com/wiki/Car+and+D…
If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
> Blake Noble
01/31/2014 at 16:57 |
|
And the Shitvette was GM's original "F*** You".
lucky's pepper
> Blake Noble
01/31/2014 at 18:10 |
|
Well written article, except for your claim that it can " almost keep pace with a Camaro ZL-1". What?!
I can only assume you're referring to acceleration, because ANY new Camaro would runaway and hide from a Syclone on a road course. But on a drag strip the results wouldn't be much different. Road tests from '91 had Syclones running low 14 sec. quarters. The ZL-1 is a nearly TWO SECONDS FASTER!
|
Blake Noble
> lucky's pepper
01/31/2014 at 20:12 |
|
Notice how the key word in that sentence was "almost?" That wasn't supposed to read like the gap between the two down a drag strip would be photo-finish close or anything, and it is true that the ZL1 does have more top-end steam. Still, in the end I think the Syclone would put on a respectable show against the ZL1 considering that it's a pickup truck whose basic design dates back the the early 1980s.
Anyone want to loan out their ZL1 and Syclone for the purposes of science? I want to see the two go head to head on an autocross course now. That would be highly ... educational? Yeah, that's the word I was looking for.
|
Blake Noble
> Shift24
01/31/2014 at 20:15 |
|
Yeah, I sort of figured the close competition to the Corvette was what killed off the Syclone and allowed the Typhoon to carry on for a short while longer. The Corvette team have always been a bunch of damn crybabies.
|
Blake Noble
> leicester
01/31/2014 at 20:15 |
|
It's like the Ferrari GTO vs Pontiac GTO comparison, only factual!
|
Blake Noble
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
01/31/2014 at 20:17 |
|
No, that would be the Chevrolet Vega (as hinted at in the article). The Vega was as slow and well built as a third-world port-a-john, had a low tolerance for oil, and rusted while parked like an Alfa Romeo Alfasud sitting at the bottom of the Dead Sea.
|
lucky's pepper
> Blake Noble
01/31/2014 at 20:40 |
|
Ahhhhh... so a naturally aspirated V6 Taurus is ALMOST as quick as a 5 liter Mustang. I get it.
|
lucky's pepper
> Blake Noble
01/31/2014 at 20:43 |
|
Ahhhhhh... so a naturally aspirated V6 Taurus could ALMOST keep pace with a 5 liter Mustang.
|
Blake Noble
> lucky's pepper
01/31/2014 at 20:45 |
|
Okay, then ...
GMC Syclone
0-60: 4.3 seconds ( Car & Driver comparison test)
Quarter mile: 13.6 seconds (Same test)
Chevrolet Camaro ZL1
0-60: 3.8 seconds
Quarter mile: around 11 to 12 seconds
The definition of almost as per Websters is "very nearly." Seems about right to me. Again, the Syclone doesn't have the same top speed.
|
lucky's pepper
> Blake Noble
01/31/2014 at 21:17 |
|
Camaro ZL-1: 12.3 at 119 mph
http://www.caranddriver.com/chevrolet/cama…
Syclone: 14.1 at 93 mph
http://www.sportmachines.com/wiki/Car+and+D…
The Syclone would finish the race 1.8 seconds behind the ZL-1, going 26 mph slower. In a drag race 1.8 seconds isn't "very nearly".
In it's day the Syclone was an incredible performance vehicle, and I'd still love to have one, but to try to say it's performance is even in the same ballpark as the ZL-1 is silly.
|
Shift24
> Blake Noble
02/01/2014 at 17:06 |
|
Yeah they can be. About the same 93-97 Camaro and Firebird used the same LT1 motor as the Corvette but detuned so that it wont step on the Vette sales
wabbastang
> Blake Noble
02/02/2014 at 12:10 |
|
The thing that instantly came to mind when I saw the headline was - "aw, that's so sad" ...
lol
|
Blake Noble
> wabbastang
02/02/2014 at 14:17 |
|
Sad for you! *arm breaks*
... I feel like a nerd now. Sorry.
|
wabbastang
> Blake Noble
02/02/2014 at 14:19 |
|
lol
Danger
> Blake Noble
02/06/2014 at 19:26 |
|
I say goddamn, son
Kylemaro
> Blake Noble
02/08/2014 at 00:36 |
|
clint eastwood had one. that is all
wrxlvr11
> Blake Noble
07/23/2014 at 10:43 |
|
I was in love with these when they came out. I only ever saw one of them, and I was going about 70mph up a mountain pass. It flew by me like I was standing still. It was black with bold red SYCLONE lettering down the side of it. I still wouldn't mind picking up one someday if I could find one.
NNate09
> lucky's pepper
02/27/2016 at 19:57 |
|
The article would have been much better if you had thought of writing it lucky