It pays to prepare when going off-road. Sometimes that means bringing the right tool for the job, and not, say, a $285,000 McLaren 720S. Other times, that means double-checking the trail ahead, something the driver of this doomed Toyota Land Cruiser aptly demonstrates with a disappearing act worthy of a Las Vegas magic revue.
Posted on Facebook in the Club Land Cruiser Costa Rica group page, this video shows just how quickly things can go south when you’re playing in the dirt. The boxy 70 Series Land Cruiser sits on the edge of a small embankment, preparing to cross what looks to be a muddy, boggy field as an off-camera Greek chorus offers a few shouts of encouragement. The driver idles down the slope, and things are proceeding as planned.
But as he reaches the bottom and inches forward, what appears to be a solid field reveals itself to be a vegetation-covered pond, and the Land Cruiser instantly breaks through and nosedives into the deep water. Making the situation all the more tragic is that this rig was equipped with a proper snorkel, which does its job until it too becomes submerged—at that point, you can see a few puffs of vapor come out of the taillight as the engine ingests water and cuts out entirely.
The video ends there, so we don’t get to see how the group managed to help their buddy out of this particular jam, or if the Land Cruiser is stuck in that marsh for all eternity. The whole escapade could have been avoided had someone just walked ten feet ahead of the truck and checked out the planned route. Chances are the engine is hydrolocked, but an extensive rebuild or a new block will probably have this truck back on the road before long. Land Cruisers are particularly hard to kill.
But like the video we featured last month of an off-road Toyota Tacoma tow job going all sorts of wrong, this clip shows that these tough machines aren’t made of magic—even if they’re capable of disappearing (or disassembling) before our very eyes.