Christmas trees are, generally, not that fast. They take years to grow. They spend their lives as upright, static shelters for whatever gifts were on offer the night before the big day. Speed isn’t a key tenet of a Christmas tree’s make-up.

John Hennessey has decided to shun convention, and strapped a giant 1.8-metre Douglas Fir onto the roof of a Hellcat and gone for a spirited flat out run. Because nothing screams Christmas like a tree being run like an extra from a heist movie.

Along Continental Tyre’s proving ground in Texas – the same proving ground where Hennessey ran a Mustang to 332.6km/h - an unmodified Dodge Challenger Hellcat Widebody was deployed, using its 707hp to propel the poor tree at quite a rate.

278km/h, as it turns out. The driver in question was Brian Smith, director of Ford’s Performance Racing School. So a man who knows a thing or two about speed...

STORY TopGear.com