The ever-increasing fascination for SUVs and trucks not only means these now dominate showrooms, but also involves drag strips being populated with more machines of the sort than ever before. And can you blame their drivers for having a giggle while showing performance cars who’s boss? Case in point with this GMC Yukon, which perfectly fits the definition of a sleeper.
We’re looking at a full-size SUV that’s around twenty years old and with the vehicle displaying a perfectly stock appearance, nobody could suspect its tech side had been seriously massaged.
The vehicle, which was probably a 15-second car when it left the factory—an estimation based on the 5.3L V8 models—recently headed out to the Orlando Speed World in Florida.
And, once again, we fully understand why the enthusiast behind the wheel spent so much time on the prepped surface—as you’ll see in the video at the bottom of the page, which comes from Drag Racing and Car Stuff, this GMT 800 (the platform) bad boy went down the quarter-mile day and night.
Given that the second-generation Yukon went as low as 11.49s in the 1/4-mile, we’re expecting some sort of power adder to have found its way under the hood.
It’s worth noting that the GMC didn’t deliver that sort of performance from the get-go, which means its driver was dialing things in, sandbagging, or (why not?) both.
This second-generation GMC Yukon is no joke
In the title, we spoke of a sixth-gen Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 duking it out with the sleeper GMC—by the way, the E.T. (elapsed time) of the Chevy shows this performed as expected from a factory machine of the sort. So we can use the ZL1’s factory output of 650 hp to estimate that the noticeably chunkier Yukon packs considerably more muscle.
Regardless, the SUV, which seems to be here in RWD form—yep, you’ll get to enjoy some glorious burnouts as you watch the machine doing its thing—took on a large variety of performance vehicles, ranging from a modded Gen I Mustang (not the only pony present at this rodeo) to a Kia Stinger and a Volkswagen Golf GTI.
