I’ve seen HMMWVs sunk up to the top of the windshield frame and LMTVs that couldn’t find any traction whatsoever in the slop. I’ve seen a K5 Blazer on 35-inch tires sunk up the tops of the wheel arches, a late 1970s Mopar B-body roosting mud about fifteen feet behind itself, and more cars flinging gravel than I can honestly remember at this point in time. But I’ve never actually seen a car stuck in the mud up to it’s fenders in a situation that didn’t involve floodwater for myself. Who does that? Where in the hell would you find a diesel-swapped Lincoln, an LS-swapped Volvo, and a Crown Victoria that is still wearing it’s original hubcaps mired in a slop pit that nothing short of a tracked vehicle was going to make it through?

Josh Mazerolle’s Deathwish Mud Buggy Adventure in Tennessee was a freakshow simply for the amount of four-by-four car conversions on the grounds. That many trars in one spot is a special kind of strange, isn’t it? Well, here’s what happens when you take a fleet of converted cars that cost about five thousand dollars to build each and actually take them off the beaten path. Many don’t make it the whole distance. Some break. And a word of advice: if everybody on the trip is encouraging you to try the soupy mud pit, you might want to avoid it. Or, at least, let somebody else take that bullet before you decide if cleaning muddy water out of your carpet is right for you.