Here’s a Subaru Forester that looks like it lost one ox, 420 pounds of food and three sets of clothing fording the swollen Moore River in Western Australia. The river was nearly 4 feet deep and carried the early Forester away, but this off-roader managed to save it anyway. Definitely don’t try this at home.
“Here fucking goes nothin’,” says the driver before plunging the modified Forester into the water.
Not even the Forester’s assortment of off-roading goodies—listed on the Subaru Off-Road YouTube channel as “custom gearbox with front helical LSD, 4.44 diffs, 1.59 low range, DCCD and Kaaz rear diff”—could help him when the water got too deep and his rear tires floated off the sandy river bottom.
Shockingly, the driver writes that his front tires still had some grip—sort of—but his car’s buoyant rear carried him downstream anyway:
I decided to try push the limits of river crossings further than any Subaru has ever done before. This was a fast flowing sandy bottom river of depth up to 1.2m. I had fully walked the area before attempting the crossing was sure the depth was beyond the capabilities of a Subaru and it was very unlikely to be crossed successfully however I was curious what would happen if only the front wheels were able to touch the bottom. Would the vehicle be able to claw its way along slowly and make it to the other side? The answer was sort of... It did claw its way across the river however the floating back end got taken by the current and the front wheels did not have sufficient traction to pull the whole vehicle into the current.
Thankfully, the Forester caught along the side of the river downstream, allowing it to be winched out using a nearby tree.
The exterior video is almost more insane, since you see just how much the Forester floated downstream before it could get winched out of the water. Hilariously, the owner says the Forester was fine to drive after it was out of the deep stuff:
Winch at ready was able to pull me out without dramas. Although after watching the footage it appears I was actually making slight progress at the end and if I had persisted I may have actually driven out.
He also advises everyone that he had carefully planned this crossing attempt beforehand, and that no one should try this on their own:
This was a carefully thought out exercise in a safe as possible a location with minimal risk of vehicle rollover or entrapment.
Needless to say DO NOT TRY THIS.
Later videos on his channel show that not only did this Forester survive floating down the Moore River, but it later went on to more successful water crossings:
Man, I love a good less common off-roader.
[H/T HammerheadFistpunch!]