YouTuber Buys Cheapest GMC Typhoon We’ve Ever Seen
After 27 years, turbocharged AWD GMC Typhoon performance SUV continues to be an impressively-quick machine.
Tyler Hoover, the man behind the hit YouTube channel Hoovies Garage, is used to rolling in style. He finds the cheapest example of a particular car on the market, then buys it and adds it to his “Hooptie Fleet.” By doing that, he’s been able to drive around (and forced to learn how to fix) such cars as the Rolls-Royce Phantom, Maserati Quattroporte, and first-generation Dodge Viper. He could’ve taken one of hundreds of once-high-dollar cars to Monterey Car Week in California. He chose to take his new-to-him 1992 GMC Typhoon.
High-performance SUVs are fairly commonplace these days. Mercedes-Benz’s powermongers AMG all of the things. BMW now makes X3M and X4M models as well as the more potent Competition versions of them. But when the Typhoon came out, it was pretty much all alone. There was no Ford Explorer ST or Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk to give it a run for its money.
With a 0-60 mph time of roughly five seconds, the Typhoon wasn’t just quick for a boxy utility vehicle, though. As Hoover explains, “This little SUV was faster than a Ferrari 348, a BMW M3 or M5, and its own brother, the Chevrolet Corvette.” Unlike the Italian and American cars in that list, the Typhoon didn’t have a V8. Instead, it had a 4.3-liter V6 connected to a turbocharger, an intercooler…and a rear-biased all-wheel drive system. Official output was 280 horsepower and 360 lb-ft of torque. Unofficial output? Probably much higher.
Hoover got his Typhoon for $9,500. As he puts it, that price “certainly makes it the cheapest teal Typhoon in the U.S.A.” It sounds as if he got his money’s worth and then some. Hoover’s confident he has the only teal Typhoon at Monterey Car Week, an event that makes Porsche 911 GT3 RSs and Ferrari 458s look common and boring. He also has one of Clint Eastwood’s favorite vehicles (who knew?!)
Of course, the best thing about Hoover’s new purchase seems to be its manic acceleration. He waits by the side of a busy road for a large enough space in the traffic to open up. Once it does, he flattens the Typhoon’s throttle so he can shoot into the gap. The more the Tyhpoon’s back end squats, the wider his eyes open. “It is INSANE how quick this thing launches.”
Too bad the AC doesn’t work and Hoover decides to ship the Typhoon back home. He probably could’ve made the trip from Monterey to his place in Wichita, Kansas in record time, drawing double takes the entire way.
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