First the GMC Typhoon, Now the Lamborghini Urus

"Performance SUV” is an oxymoron. It shouldn’t exist. Utilitarian plus very fast makes no sense. What self-­indulgent person needs a ridiculously expensive vehicle to haul sheets of plywood, a family of five, or 20 carry-­ons—and ass? And with a 190-mph top speed? Performance-car enthusiasts are not practical people and certainly not rational consumers. No one needs a whomping SUV, but plenty of people want one.

Porsche’s Cayenne Turbo GT runs the Nürburg­ring as quickly as a 911 from a decade ago. General Motors put a 682-hp supercharged V-8 in the Escalade. The best-selling Mercedes G-­­Wagen variant in the U.S. is, laughably, the AMG G63. Ferrari, Aston Martin, and Lotus held out but are now in the fast-SUV business. And the fastest and most ostentatious of them all? It’s likely this: the Lamborghini Urus Performante, a $330K, two-and-a-half-ton, 657-hp twin-turbo V-8 crossover optimized for the racetrack.

To call the Urus Performante a “culmination” would be to tempt fate, as these things aren’t getting slower, lighter, or cheaper.

The Performante is awash in torque, the eight-speed automatic paddles precisely, and the chassis grips like a barnacle. There’s some Audi in it, like in every Urus, but from carbon-fiber hood to titanium exhaust, this is the most Lambo of Urus models by far. It’s stiff and it barks, but it still has room for a couple of kids.

And it’s all GMC’s fault.

In 1991, Car and Driver, Road & Track’s sibling/rival, put the then-new GMC Syclone pickup truck on the cover, lining it up against the Ferrari 348TS. The $26,120 ($58K in today’s money) 280-hp pickup had a single turbo on its 4.3-liter pushrod V-6 and all-wheel drive that allowed it to edge out the Ferrari in a short drag race. The Syclone was 0.4 second quicker to 30 mph and 0.7 second quicker to 60 mph but 13.7 seconds slower to 120 mph, close to its 126-mph top speed. The new king of Woodward would have been smoked on a mountain pass or a racetrack. But someone had to be first to outrun a Ferrari with a truck, even if one had to zoom in pretty close to game the math.

But then GMC made a small change for 1992 and created a segment: It fit the Syclone powertrain, body kit, and wheels to its already nine-year-old two-door S-15 Jimmy, gave it an equally awesome wind-based name, the GMC Typhoon, and invented the fast SUV.

Evan Meyer is a Typhoon enthusiast—he’s owned four. In high school, his first car was a lightly used (resprayed) Fly yellow example; he then owned a pair of black ones (concurrently); then he acquired the monochrome Frost white collector-grade version we’re driving today. He knows the model-year nuances and didn’t end up with this one by chance.