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Santa would need more than 400,000 carrots to fuel his sleigh pulling reindeer just to get around the UK, ground-breaking research by specialist car insurer ClassicLine Insurance has revealed.

Based on the price of a carrot at 6.5p and the total UK road distance of 245,000 miles, boffins at ClassicLine were able to work out the exact carrot count using a complex formula including the average fuel price.

In detail, 4,693 gallons of petrol would be needed to cover this distance using the average mpg of a petrol car at 52.2mpg. Gallons are then converted into litres, which equates to 21,334 litres, to give a whopping pump price of £26,027 which is then divided by the actual cost of an actual carrot at 0.065 to give a precise figure of 400,422 carrots needed.

Traditionally eight reindeer – Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder and Blixem, were used to pull Santa’s sleigh, but the more recent addition of Rudolph makes nine, meaning each one would need to munch an astounding 44,491 carrots each for a trip around Great Britain!

Ian Fray, managing director at ClassicLine Insuarance, said: “Fuel prices are a concern for many motorists but thankfully for Santa he gets his carrots for free as he delivers presents to grateful households, otherwise he could be severely out of pocket!”

“Of course, Santa doesn’t need to travel by road which is just as well as his reindeer produce just 5.80 MPC (miles per carrot)!”