GMC Syclone
Back in the 1980s, GM experimented a lot with turbocharged engines, which was in line with industry trends at the moment. The most famous of them all was Buick Grand National or Buick GNX, which featured a 3.8-liter turbocharged V6 engine and sub-five-second 0 to 60 mph time. Those Buicks terrorized drag strips and stoplights with that kind of firepower. By the early 1990s, though, those Buicks were gone. GM engineers were looking for where to install that turbo hardware. The decision was to make a crazy sports truck out of a Chevrolet S10, a compact pickup with four-cylinder power. This is how the Syclone was born (via JD Power).
GM took an ordinary S10 body shell and installed a 4.3-liter V6 with a turbocharger, good for 280 hp. The Syclone also had a special four-speed automatic sourced from the Corvette and performance-biased all-wheel drive. Its power figures don’t sound much these days, but the Syclone was able to sprint to 60 mph in just 5.3 seconds. That made it faster than contemporary Ferraris. The key was its light weight and lots of torque from its turbocharged engine. Of course, the price was significantly higher than the regular model. There were less than 3,000 made, almost all of them in its signature black color. Today, the Syclone is very much a collector vehicle and a sought-after model. It is still relatively fast and can hold its own against much younger and more powerful cars.