Long before Hellcats or Trackhawks were skidding their way into suburbia, GMC took a mild-mannered body-on-frame already in its lineup and gave it a hurricane-force performance boost.

If you were car shopping in the early ’90s and wanted something roomily practical, with rain-or-shine traction, and the ability to smoke a Mustang GT at a red light, you probably didn’t expect the answer to be a GMC Jimmy in a tracksuit.

But that’s exactly what the GMC Typhoon was: a turbocharged all-wheel-drive anomaly that made zero sense on paper but was absolute magic on pavement.

A high-riding cousin of the GMC Syclone

The Typhoon was born from the same lunacy that created the GMC Syclone, the now-legendary turbo V6 pickup that turned the performance world sideways. Using much of the same hardware, a 4.3-liter turbocharged V6, full-time AWD, and a beefed-up 4-speed automatic, the Typhoon brought that same drivetrain to a compact SUV format.

It made 280 horsepower and a stump-pulling 360 lb-ft of torque, numbers that would make a contemporary Mustang LX 5.0 think twice. The Typhoon could sprint from 0 to 60 mph in just over five seconds, according to period road tests from MotorTrend and Automobile magazines. 

In 1992, that was mind-blowing for anything, let alone a luxury-trimmed GMC

Performance numbers aside, the Typhoon wasn’t just a quick SUV: it was a completely unexpected one.

GMC wrapped it in aggressive monochrome body cladding, dropped it an inch or two for stance, and fit it with 16-inch directional wheels and sport-tuned suspension. The result was a low-slung bruiser that looked like a concept car someone accidentally greenlit for production.

Inside, it was downright plush. Leather seats, a center console with a digital boost gauge, and a level of refinement you didn’t usually associate with the GMC badge in the early ’90s. 

It was offered in a range of colors from stealthy Black/Black to oddball combos like Apple Red with Gray cladding, but every Typhoon had the same air of barely-contained power.

Rarer than a Ferrari, and finally appreciated

Between 1992 and 1993, GMC built just 4,697 Typhoons, making it far rarer than most of its performance peers, American or European. For years, it flew under the radar, appealing mostly to GM die-hards and turbo-nerds who knew what it was. But since Covid, prices are climbing.

Bring a Trailer shows a low-mileage Typhoon that fetched $226,000 in March. The coveted black-on-black examples crossed $50,000 in the last year. Even higher-mile drivers are seeing appreciation, as clean survivors become increasingly scarce.

Not without quirks

Of course, no early ’90s turbocharged platform is bulletproof. The Typhoon had a reputation for turbo lag, and the 4L60 automatic could be fragile under hard launches, especially in modified examples. Brakes were just okay, and the ride could get stiff over broken pavement.

But the bones were solid, the drivetrain was tunable, and the AWD system made it a legitimate all-weather street weapon. Enthusiasts today still modify Typhoons for show and go, with some running into the 11s at the drag strip.

The GMC Typhoon may not have beaten Ferraris in magazine shootouts like its pickup sibling, the Syclone, but it didn’t have to. It was a luxury-laced SUV that could outrun pony cars, turn heads, and reset expectations.