Is This Hellcat Santa Sleigh Amazing or Awful?

While it is only November 7, weeks before Thanksgiving in the United States, the Christmas season is beginning to unfold on the radio, in stores, and in marketing.

Some people are resistant to the (extremely) early preparation for the December 25 holiday, but the folks at Dodge have already rolled out their first holiday commercial for 2018 – and it is a good one.

The commercial is titled “Upgrade” and it features Bill Goldberg – former NFL player, former WWF wrestler and current world-renown muscle car collector – as Santa Claus. It begins with footage of the elves hard at work when a very muscular Santa decides that his ride is due for an upgrade. At that point, Santa and a few of his elves head into the garage, where an SRT Durango, a Hellcat Charger and a Redeye Challenger are all hanging out.

ALSO SEE: Armored AWD Dodge Charger Hellcat Cop Car is a Sheriff’s Dream

As some elves shine up the Durango and Charger, others take to transforming the Challenger Redeye into Santa’s new sleigh. They cut off the roof, modify the sides of the car to accept snow skis rather than wheels and they routed the exhaust out through the front fenders. Needless to say, Santa Goldberg approves.

While this is a fun commercial, it should be noted that the Redeye Challenger-based sleigh is real. This isn’t computer generated graphics – Dodge actually hacked up a 797-horsepower muscle car and built the sleigh shown in the video. In fact, this sleigh still packs the supercharged Hemi and it still starts and runs, although it no longer drives, since it doesn’t have wheels anymore.

Best of all, FCA has stated that there will be a longer version of this commercial coming closer to Christmas featuring Roadkill emcee Christy Lee, so we might get to see even more of this 797-horsepower, Challenger-based sleigh in the next month or so.

In the meantime, crank up your speakers and enjoy the first great commercial of the 2018 Christmas season.

From our sister site AllPar.com