How Does the Chevy Camaro ZL1 1LE Compare to Santa’s Sleigh?

The Camaro may have more power, but Santa’s magic gives his sleigh some unique advantages.

byJustin Hughes|
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The 2018 Chevy Camaro ZL1 1LE is a lean mean track monster. It lapped the Nurburgring in 7:16.04, which is faster than cars like the Ferrari 488 GTB, Nissan GT-R, and the Mercedes SLS AMG. That's all well and good, but we're interested in a question of a more seasonal nature: How does this track trimmed Camaro hold up against Santa's sleigh?

GM Parts Center wondered the same thing and created this handy chart to compare and contrast these two unusual vehicles.

GM Parts Center

The Camaro has some obvious advantages. Its 650-hp supercharged LT4 V8 is enough to beat the nine reindeer-power sleigh by a good margin. Even with Rudolph leading the pack, Santa's sleigh can't compare these power figures—or the sound.

This engine transmits its power through a six-speed manual transmission. Santa, on the other hand, has to rely on a series of grunts and whistles, hoping that his team of reindeer actually obey his commands. And while the Camaro isn't exactly a fuel sipper at 20 mpg (presumably while not lapping the Nurburgring), the sleigh—or, most specifically, its occupants—guzzle one to two cookies per house. That's a lot of cookies and doesn't even include carrots for the reindeer (I always left a carrot for Rudolph because I felt sorry for him). This complicated fuel infrastructure only exists one night per year—Christmas Eve.

But when it comes down to delivering presents to children all around the world in a single night, the sleigh has special capabilities that the Camaro lacks. The biggest difference is cargo space. While the Camaro has a small 9.1 cubic-foot trunk, the sleigh's cargo capacity is infinite. How else could Santa transport billions and billions of presents? His sleigh is like a magical Bag of Holding from Dungeons and Dragons. (Please, nobody ask Santa for a Portable Hole for Christmas. It might turn Santa's sleigh into a black hole.)

The Camaro is fast, but Santa's sleigh is faster. It has to be in order to travel to every house in the world in a single night. No one has managed to take the sleigh down the quarter mile, but it's estimated to accelerate from zero to 60 mph in 1/32 of a millisecond. The Camaro might as well not bother showing up to this race, with a glacial 3.5-second zero to 60 time. the sleigh's top speed of 2.3 million mph puts moon rockets to shame, let alone the Camaro with its snail-like 181 mph top speed.

The Camaro is definitely cool, but now I'm wondering where I can get my hands on a sleigh like Santa's. Maybe I can build one after I finish the VW Jetta Ute project.

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