Here at TopSpeed, we’ve got a closely guarded secret, but we’ve finally decided to spill the beans. See, for the last 10 years, we’ve been on Santa’s advisory board and are tasked with helping him plan his annual trip around the world. Usually, we advise him of what new vehicles are best for transporting presents and help him plan out his trip. However, this year, he asked us to kick it up a notch and help him design an all-new sleigh that will not only give Rudolph and the rest of the gang a much-needed rest but will also get him around the world in style and luxury. It took us four months just to decided which model to start out with, but in the end, we developed the GTC4Lusso Sleigh 2.0.

Santa is more than happy with the sleigh we’ve come up with, and it’s already been through extensive testing in preparation for the big day. Based on the 2016 Ferrari GTC4Lusso, you know the big man is traveling in luxuriousness, and he can obviously get there quickly too. But, there’s a lot more than what meets the eye. See; this isn’t your everyday GTC4Lusso – this baby is loaded to the gills with the type of magic that only Santa can make possible. So, this thing carries a considerable amount of power over the standard 6.3-liter V-12 and, despite appearing small, has enough cargo room to haul enough presents to hit half of the world in one trip.

But, before I get too far ahead of myself, Santa’s already hard at work navigating his way to the homes of kids all over the world. So, let’s dive on in a take a look at the GTC4Lusso Sleigh 2.0.

Exterior

Obviously, this is no standard GTC4Lusso. In anticipation of the big man’s needs, the first thing we did was install a system that allows the front and rear wheels to be folded up and stashed away inside a secret compartment below the vehicle. Sure, you can’t see it, but that’s where some of that magic we talked comes into play. But, we’ll talk a little more about that in a minute. As you can see, the new chassis is made up of a pair of wooden skis that are mounted directly to the body via a special light-weight titanium alloy. We left most of the body alone up front, but we did add a living wreath up front that will continue to grow as long as Santa uses the sleigh. The elves aren’t too happy about having to trim it once a week, but they eventually got over it.

The GTC4Lusso may be aerodynamic in its own right, but we ran into a lot of issues keeping it stable. And, at Santa’s age, he gets pretty upset when a rough ride jingles his bells. So, we designed and equipped not only our own interpretation of jet-fighter wings but also a pair of attractive tail fins. The addition of these allow Santa to engage in the tightest zero turns possible on every axis imaginable. Thanks to this, he can avoid any obstacles he finds mid-flight without issue. After all, last year a flock of Snow Geese almost too him out, so we had to tackle that problem head on.

You’ll also notice that there is a jet thruster attached to each wing. This is in place to compensate for the extra power needed that the standard 6.3-liter engine can’t provide. We’ll talk more about that in the drivetrain section below, though. Finally, in the rear, there’s a pair of small thrusters that you can’t see to help make minor course adjustments as needed, and Santa demanded that his famous hat be mounted to the rear so that the more aggressive nations of the world know that he’s on a delivery mission of peace. Not a bad idea, and so far, Santa has reported no problems.

Interior

This is one of the places where the magic really takes hold. Santa gave us permission to discuss his new sleigh but refused to let us provide much of what makes the inside so special. Inside, Santa stuck with all of the common amenities found in the road-going GTC4Lusso. There’s the flat-bottom steering wheel and healthy doses of leather everywhere you look. We did have to move the location of the driver’s seat back a bit, however, as Mrs. Clause has been cooking everyone a feast for the past few months, and Santa can be a bit of a lush when it comes to that woman’s food. But, then again, I’ve gained about 40 pounds in the process, so maybe Mrs. Clause has some magic of her own in the kitchen – it’s just so hard to walk away.

On to what really matters, Santa wanted to figure out how he can hit more homes without having to double back to the North Pole as much as he has been. Well, we sat down with him and looked over what kind of magical capabilities he has, and we came up with a solution. We can’t tell you specifically how it works, but the rear cargo area of this baby can hold the equivalent of 100 53-foot semi-trailers. That computes to 381,600 cubic-feet of cargo room, and enough room to haul 53 percent of the presents Santa has to deliver. This should allow him to hit one-half of the world, stop home for some of Mrs. Clauses cooking, reload, and hit those of us on this side of the world.

While we’re not able to give you specifics, Santa did agree to let us give out one of his secrets. See, Santa is able to live so long because he has mastered temporal mechanics. And, since he technically lives outside of what we know as space and time, he wanted to incorporate that into this new sleigh. As such, we were able to design him a special cargo area that is much larger than the sleigh itself that only he can access and see (we could, but only when he let us.) If you could see his cargo hold, it would look like there was a HUGE cargo box integrated to the rear end. It’s there; you just can’t see it because it exists outside of our time and space. Pretty wild, right? Well, that’s not all. See, since Santa has mastered temporal mechanics, he also wanted to incorporate time travel into his new sleigh – that way he can stop off and take a nap without losing a second of time as he can just go back to before his nap and continue on his mission of present delivery.

Drivetrain

First off, we left the standard drivetrain configuration alone. So, under the hood, you’ll find a 6.3-liter V-12 that delivers 680 horsepower and 514 pound-feet of torque. When the wheels are deployed on the ground, Santa’s sleigh, even with that magical cargo hold, can hit 60 mph in 3.4 seconds and a top speed of around 208 mph. Believe it or not, Santa is a drift fanatic and actually prefers to keep all four wheels on the ground so he can play around in his special icy drift track behind the house. It drives the reindeer crazy, but Santa loves it too much to not indulge.

Back to the topic at hand, the thrusters you see on each wing aren’t your normal plane engines like you see on 747s. Santa needed more than that if he’s going to hit every house without having to constantly travel back through time – he doesn’t like the idea of there being hundreds of him scattered all over the world at once doing the same thing; it’s just bad for his image. So, we’ve developed the closest thing to a warp engine mankind has ever come up with. When running at 100 percent, these thrusters can push his sleigh to within one percent of the speed of light, or 184,140 mph. Of course, he can’t use this drive between each house in a neighborhood, but it sure does make his trip back to the North Pole to reload almost instantaneous. Plus, we’ve added in other things like special gravity plating and an atmosphere maintenance system that will allow Santa to enter orbit of our planet and dock with the international space station. He said this was a necessity, as the men and women on the space station deserve to have Christmas presents too.

As far as the chassis and suspension goes, there’s actually two systems. The first is a modified version of the standard suspension and chassis that allows the front wheels to fold down, or fold upward and disappear into the same place outside of space and time that his cargo hold resides. When the wheels are down, however, Santa has the absolute best ride quality and stability known to man. When the wheels are folded upward, the new suspension system kicks in that helps to keep the body of his sleigh stable while the skis can adjust in any direction to accommodate conditions of the land he happens to be cruising across. We’ve successfully tested the sleigh in the sands of the middle east, the cold water around Antarctica, the streets of San Fransisco, and the rugged terrain of the moon – just to be sure. Needless to say, there’s nowhere Santa can’t go.

Conclusion

And there you have it. We wanted to expose all of his secrets, but while Santa was pretty cooperative, he has to protect his secrets. When we pushed the issue, he swore us to secrecy and told us that if we didn’t stick to it, he would turn us into reindeer and use us to pull his old sleigh next year. But, there are no hard feelings here, we ca completely understand. In the end, Santa is currently traveling the world using the best sleigh he’s ever had, and for the first time in his life, he’ll be able to be home in time for Christmas breakfast, so there will be no arguing with Mrs. Clause on Christmas morning. Oh, by the way, Santa also requested a special cloaking technology so that he would remain concealed on his flights throughout the night. But, he also had us equip his new sleigh with a special GPS tracker so that the world can still track his progress through the night. We’re happy we could do our part to help out the big guy, and we hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!