Cars are spectacular. Everything about them becomes this entirely amazing concept when you realize how many separate parts come together to somehow make something else entirely. And if you take even one part of a car, especially something like the engine, and begin to understand how it works, how it was made, who designed it, and then to see that it's only one part of an entirely separate machine, it really starts to become awe-inspiring that cars are a human invention. And even further, once you've driven a few and gotten to know their quirks, you realize that they are each one different, none alike, and they have their own personality and temperament.

The very idea of a car is fascinating, awe-inspiring, and truly incredible. Add to this the introduction of cars specifically engineered to perform amazing feats, off-road vehicles that can go unimaginable places with ease, places you would struggle to even hike or climb, or supercars that are capable of reaching phenomenal speeds and taking corners fast enough to take your face off. And that's not taking into account that even a basic road car can do when forced to do things that it was never, ever designed to, sometimes accomplishing surprising things that you might not think possible with such a simple, cheap budget car. But this article isn't about that, because cars can't always be outstanding. Sometimes they fail, underperform, and get stuck in a lot of silly places. There are just certain things that cars can't do. So here are 25 cars stuck in mud, snow, and sand.

25 No Speeding Tickets Today!

This poor officer must have been so confused when he hurriedly pressed on the gas in the hopes of catching a speeder, only to find that his tires were merely driving him deeper into the earthy, muddy bog beneath the car. I'm no officer, but I would say it's probably a good idea to doublecheck that you aren't parked in slushy mud-grass when you're trying to patrol the highway. In fact, if you're going to be driving over the grass at all after it's been raining, it's probably a good idea to double check anyway. Fortunately for the vehicles speeding by, it must have been their lucky day. It's impossible to tell if the cars passing in the picture are actually going over the speed limit. Although, there is one thing that's absolutely certain which is that the highway patrolman will not be giving out any tickets or chasing after anyone, no matter how fast they're going. That's until he finds a way out of the mud, of course. At least he came mildly prepared with some cardboard to help him get traction. Although something tells me that it's not actually working. It could be the fact that the cardboard has now become one with the mud. Might be a good time to call in some reinforcements.

24 Team Work Saves The Day

This car had barely enough momentum to slide into the shoulder. My guess is the driver was being cautious, going the appropriate speed, but still lost control of their vehicle because of hazardous, unknowable road conditions. It happens to almost everyone. This driver looks like they almost saved their slide, too, as they aren't really off the road and mostly pointed forwards. If conditions were only slightly different I'd wager that they either wouldn't have lost control of the vehicle at all, or they would have been able to correct the car back to the proper course before getting stuck in the shoulder.

Apparently quite a large gaggle of good Samaritans were nearby as well, ready to help get this car back onto the road.

The biggest thing that helps get a car unstuck from the snow is to rock it. Goose the throttle in steady, easy motions to get the car moving back and forth, back and forth.

With this many people helping push, the rocking will get bigger and bigger, but not faster, and soon you will find that your car can usually escape with ease, and you'll be back on your way! This car looks like it's in pretty deep snow, though, as you can see by the shovels. Hopefully, a little digging and a lot of rocking got this car out!

23 That Looks Like A Bit Of A "Sticky" Situation

I have so, so many questions. The most pressing of which is: why is this Bentley even in the mud at all? But I also can't figure out: why is the driver sitting in the mud beside his car? Why are there so many people watching, but not helping? Why is the area roped off? What inspired this driver to go into a grassy area, and why didn't he avoid the mud? Why is he shirtless? Is he holding a bike tire? I guess some questions in life will never be answered.

What we do know is that this $250,000 filthy and mud-spattered car is not going anywhere, anytime soon. Unless, of course, someone shows up with a tow truck. What really gets me is the expression on the driver's face. Although slightly irritated and confused, you can also see that he has simply accepted defeat and completely given up any chances of maintaining his dignity or pride. Which is understandable considering that he's literally wallowing in a pool of mud in the middle of a group of strangers. Talk about a sticky situation. So for future reference, if you feel like taking a car for a spin in the mud, it's probably best not to use your Bentley.

22 Just Another Pool Party

It's unclear what could have ever possibly inspired this truck driver to venture so deep into such an obvious pool of mud. Pride? Curiousity? A bet? Stupidity? Confusion? Excitement? Based on the plethora of mud-covered trucks surrounding the pit, I feel like he may have gotten a little too carried away while trying to show off. But your guess is as good as mine. I'm also curious to know how much damage this stunt caused, but the likelihood is that it killed the engine, along with the driver's pride.

I'm sure it also ruined his day. Thus, we learn many lessons from this picture. First, it goes to show that no matter what kind of vehicle you have, a big pool of dirt mixed with water will always win. First off, washing the car off will never fix the damage from the mud. Second, if you ever intentionally drive yourself into a situation you can't get out of, don't count on amused onlookers to help out. Third, we learn that teleportation is not possible. So when you're entirely surrounded by a muddy wasteland, sometimes you have no other option than to swim out.

21 I Don't Think It's Moving Any Time Soon

That is some thick, sticky mud. You can see it gooping up the tires and no doubt caking the inside of the wheel wells, the drive-train, front end, undercarriage, and more. Of course, it's going to stay hidden in all kinds of nooks and crannies forever. It looks more like clay, actually, which is much worse. It dries harder and is definitely a huge pain to have to get off of any part of your car, let alone everything that's underneath of it. While they're stuck they might as well put the top down, get some sun, fresh air, they're gonna be there a while.

It's not hard to understand that a rear wheel drive sports car with thin tires and a very low ground clearance won't do well in any kind of off-roading. It's hard enough to drive these cars on the regular road, what with potholes and speed bumps and cracks and debris in the road. This Camaro was designed for drag racing, not for being dragged through the mud. Maybe next time they will reconsider going this way next time.

20 When The Road Becomes A Riverbed

This kind of thing happens when, because of heavy rains or other similar types of natural weather blowing through an area like this, causes things to get just a little bit out of hand. There's also the possibility of some kind of volcanic activity nearby, possibly causing mudslides. No matter the reason, it would be so terrible to have to be stranded in this kind of crazy phenomenon! I'd rather it be snow because at least the snow will melt, hopefully, sooner rather than later.

Whereas here, it's going to be a lot more work to get your car unburied. It's crazy to see a vantage point like this one of such a huge mash of destruction. The foreground definitely looks like a riverbed, where there once used to be a highway. It's crazy how powerful mother nature is, and how temperamental. One second you're driving down the highway, the next moment liquid earth is streaming past you, and the next thing you know you're stuck, car buried several feet underneath the ground. You've got no way to remove it, you'll just have to wait for it to get cleaned up, and who knows how long that could take.

19 Might As Well Make It A Seesaw

I see a lot of silly things happening in this photo. We've got a stock SUV with what I would be ready to assume are fully inflated stock tires. Fully inflated tires are terrible in the sand, as they'll get you stuck in a minute flat. Somehow, this car managed to make it really far up the sand dune. They made it too far actually, riding over the top of the sand dune and firmly high-centering the car. This does a lot of things to the car beside getting it stuck. That's obviously the primary one, but there are a lot of secondary dangers with this.

Having all that weight on the underside of the vehicle can stress the frame, and also break any number of lines that go across the bottom. To make matters worse this guy is attaching a snap line under the car, which if the frame is weak enough and the car is tugged aggressively enough, could potentially break the car in half, or at the very least severely bend the frame. It's best to use a winch, but they obviously don't know that.

18 A Sand Boat That Doesn't Exactly Work

You have to know you've done something tragically wrong when, out of all the different kinds of vehicles, your Toyota Land Cruiser gets stuck in the sand. That would be like getting your snowmobile stuck in the snow. And not even mildly stuck. These tires are so deeply embedded in the sand that the entire vehicle is almost level with the ground. To be honest, that's quite a feat to accomplish. Because I get the feeling that those tires were spinning for a long time before the driver gave up and realized the only place he or she was going was, quite literally, down.

No amount of tire deflation and pushing will be able to get you out of this sand. So good luck digging, but don't count on that working great either.

Underneath sand is... More sand! That's an excellent way to seal the fate of your vehicle. On the bright side, at least the driver now owns a sand boat. So although it's stationary (and completely impractical for moving across the surface of the sand), this sand boat can do something no other vehicle can. This one has the unique ability to sink you further and further down towards the center of the earth. There aren't many vehicles that can travel vertically like that.

17 Would You Call This High Or Low Centered?

This one comes from the deserts of Dubai, and can be safely classified as not only getting stuck in the sand but as getting high centered in the sand. If that angle was just a little bit straighter, they could have easily kept cruising along without help. At least this is an easy enough position to get out of with some pushing and maybe a bit of digging. The situation is not hopeless and likely won't completely damage your vehicle, which is always a good thing. I would say that if you're planning on getting your vehicle stuck in sand in the middle of a desert, this is the correct way to do it.

I mean, the passenger still looks like he's having fun, the driver is already working on figuring it out, and there's another car heading towards them in case they need help. Although, I would also venture to say that not getting stuck at all would be the real victory. But we can't always get what we want so sometimes that means you get stuck in a sand dune in Dubai with your rear passenger tire hovering in the air and that's okay. Just be sure you get a sick picture.

16 Google Maps Or Really Bad Idea?

It's so perfectly placed there on the French Riviera, with the sapphire Mediterranean waves gently lapping at its back tires thoroughly nested deep in the sand. You might even mistake it for some kind of interpretive art piece, maybe a strange political French sculpture statement. Not sure what the actual backstory is behind this 911 Porsche Cabriolet, but it's clear that they tried hard to get it out. You can notice this because of the wooden pallets piled in front of the car.

Whoever drives this car doesn't really know much about cars at all though, as they should know their car is either rear-wheel drive or four-wheel drive depending on the model that they bought. A refined, precise machine engineered for weight, balance, and handling is definitely not going to be only front wheel drive. With how much wood is piled up in front of the air-dam, they could've spared to put a couple slats on the back wheels too. You can even see the back tires almost halfway buried underneath that pristine Riviera sand. Whatever the story is, the decision to take a slick Porsche off-roading was a very expensive one.

15 Sand Isn't Always The Nicest

This car got into a fight with sand and lost. Big time. Three strikes, you're out. It's a guessing game as to what actually happened to this car, whether it broke down on the beach, got stuck in the sand and then high tide got to it, any number of things could have happened. Maybe it even sunk into an unpredictable soft-spot on the beach, where the water wells up and creates a dangerous sink-hole scenario.

In any case, it's safe to say that this car is most definitely stuck in the sand. Very stuck. I wonder what would happen if someone, just for the challenge, decided to unbury it and try to get it running again. I imagine it would be possible, although extraordinarily challenging. I imagine with every storm this car will get further and further covered in sand, soon enough it will be gone, lost to the sands of time. This picture was taken at the 90-mile beach in New Zealand, where the interstate actually follows the sandy beach.

14 It Takes More Than Just A Good Car

Here we've got a pretty sick truck, a Toyota Hilux. This particular 4 wheel drive truck is modded out with top of the line gear, raised suspension, knobby tires lowered to 15 psi, a snorkel, long-range antennae, winches, rhino guards front and back, heavy duty jacks, shovels, and equipped who knows what else inside the covered bed of the truck. This silver sand surfer can go just about anywhere. But even with high clearance, it's easy in the desert sand to bottom your car out.

This kind of dune is called a razorback dune, and they're fairly commonly found throughout any sandy environment. They are easily one of the trickiest obstacles to come across.

The tendency might be to try and give it a lot of gas to get out, but that can make things worse, flinging more sand away from your tires and making your car even higher centered. The best thing to do in an instance like this is to winch your way out, it will be simplest and least likely to cause serious damage. And then make sure you avoid something like this from happening again!

13 Did I Miss My Exit?

Snow on the roads drastically changes the way you have to drive, and the way a car will behave. You can't stop as fast, you can't turn as fast, and you have to think several moves ahead to be safe. It definitely makes driving interesting. Personally, I love driving in the snow. It's fun and challenging, but it can also be very dangerous, especially when ice or slush get involved. Driving in the snow at that point goes from less traction than normal to no traction. Which is what happened to this Toyota Corolla, a car not known for it's exceptional handling or traction, or snow going capabilities.

It was being driven by a 19 year old who lost control of the vehicle and slid off the road into a snowbank. She was perfectly fine and the car surprisingly suffered no damage from the crash, but it just goes to show how tricky driving in the snow can actually be, especially if you're not paying attention. Close call if you ask me, precariously perched like that. The local police towed her out and all was good.

12 No One Was Harmed In The Making Of This Sculpture

You could say this person's day was a bit upended. Or you could even go so far as to say their drive to work took a bit of a nosedive. Things were going well, but then they took a faceplant. I didn't know Google was working on an acrobatic car, this one can even do a headstand! All joking aside, though, this car was part of a pretty big pileup during a winter storm with a lot of snowfall in Salem, New Hampshire in 2011. Fortunately, no one was killed, and no one was even injured.

Imagine the number of variables and specific set of circumstances leading up to this car crashing and perfectly spinning out of control, off the road to have this vehicle end up perched perfectly on its nose. Crazy stuff. Just goes to show how unpredictable driving conditions can be, especially snow, where there can be a mixture of ice, water, slush, sticky snow, wet snow, dry snow, wet tarmac and dry, all potentially within a mile of each other. Winter driving will keep you on your toes for sure, always make sure to be safe!

11 Post Apocalypse or Winter Storm?

2011 was a pretty rough winter for a lot of places across the United States, and this is a pretty convincing picture to back up that statement. Hundreds of cars were left abandoned on the highway because of a massive blizzard that tore through Chicago, a place in the United States that's pretty well used to winter, snow, and driving in less than ideal conditions.

These cars were stuck for over twelve hours because the snow was so deep. Many people were stuck in their cars for that length of time.

Can you imagine being exiled to your car for twelve hours, in a blizzard of historic magnitude? It would be scary, frustrating, and kind of fun all in the same moment. Especially if you were a kid who got to have their first snow day. You could run around on the freeway and build a snowman in the lanes where cars normally go highway speeds! That sounds like a good time to me, even though I'm an adult now. Crazy that a simple storm can leave so many stranded and cause such a life-changing event to happen. This shows that even driving on city roads can leave you stuck in snow given the right circumstances. It's a good lesson in making sure you are always prepared for the kind of driving you'll be facing!

10 It Probably Wasn't Sunny When This Car Slid Off The Road

It's scary to think about how far a car will slide if control is lost and traction is low. Winter driving sometimes will create a perfect combination of momentum and lack of friction to where your car will get a mind of its own and slide wherever it pleases. All it might take is a small patch of black ice to send your car spinning, sliding, or drifting very quickly off of the freeway.

In this case we have a Buick, which is a heavy car with good traction, buried in deep snow off the side of a freeway, with a semi speeding by in the background. You can see that the road is clear now, but when the car slid off of the road it was most likely that the road was covered in the same snow, packed down, smoothed over, melted, and refrozen to create some of the most unsafe driving conditions known to man. Hopefully this car wasn't going too fast when they lost control, and they're fortunate that the vehicle didn't careen further or roll off of the road. The end result would have been a lot worse.

9 Nothing Like The Smell of Clutch Smoke In The Morning

Jeeps are fun. Many people buy Jeeps for the wide variety of amazing activities you can do with them. The incredible four-wheel drive they possess makes adventuring possible in many places you wouldn't normally be able to take any vehicle. And we all know that the name 'Jeep' is often tied to off-roading and having the ability to drive in sand, mud, or whatever other substance you feel like going in. However, no vehicle, not even a Jeep, can be taken through this much mud without something bad happening. And in this case, many, many bad things are happening. No matter how lifted this Jeep is, there's still a high probability that mud deep is going to eventually leak into the car, someway, somehow.

According to Autoevolution.com, this ridiculously deep mud and lack of judgment on the driver's part completely hydrolocked and killed the engine.

Even if it could have somehow managed to survive, it would take a very long time to assess and fix the damage. But it didn't. It died. I'm also genuinely questioning how the driver was able to get out of the vehicle without drowning in mud. Talk about a mess. It's probably a safe rule of thumb to confirm the depth of a mud puddle if it spans the entire width of a road. Before you take an expensive Jeep through it.

8 Ford Just Focus On Sticking To The Tarmac

Black cars always look stupid cool when they're splattered with thick mud just like this. Something about it makes them seem so hardcore and ready to take on anything. They don't even look messy, they just look bold, loud and cool. But there are different ways of getting out of the mud without doing what the driver of this Ford Focus did. Which was driving their low-profile, hot hatchback straight into a deep vat of mud. Front tires too, which means this car has absolutely no hope of getting out on its own power.

It's going to have to be towed out because it's front wheel drive, and those front wheels are otherwise occupied. Rally car racing is a way to make your car look cool with mud splatters, and the right Ford Focus would do absolutely incredible on a rally track, but not this Ford Focus, not on this track. This track is more of a puddle, a quagmire of thick, sticky mud much too deep for most rally cars to make it through. This looks like it's more of a job for a truck or Jeep. If it's too deep for those either. Maybe save those rally racer dreams for another day.

7 Vacation Gone Wrong

You might be wondering why there's so much clothing on the roof of this car, and why it looks like it's stuck in the middle of nowhere. Well, that's because it is. Two men went on a fishing trip in Western Australia and got trapped in this mud flat.

According to The Sunday Times Driving, they were stranded on the roof of their vehicle for five days before they were eventually spotted and rescued.

The men were extremely terrified because not only were they running out of food and water, but there were also crocodiles circling their car, waiting for the right moment to attack. Talk about a nightmare! I can't even imagine their feelings of terror, knowing that there's absolutely no way out of the current situation except to wait and hope. The men feared they wouldn't be found before it was too late, so they resorted to making goodbye videos for their friends and family in hopes that, even if they died, their phones would be found with their last words. Thankfully, a plane eventually saw them and sent help. It's a relief to say that the only thing that died in this story was the vehicle. And thank goodness it kept them out of those crocodile-infested waters!

6 I Think They Missed More Than a Road Sign. . .

What interests me the most about this situation and this story is the fact that the idiots driving the car were driving this rental Range Rover on a protected beach in England, part of a nature reserve in South Walney. You can't normally even walk on this beach it's so fragile and protected. But these guys blew by all signs and kept on going, getting stuck in the sand, whence they tried in a very not-smart way to dig the car out. Which clearly back-fired and then just left the car to get taken by the tides.

As I said, this is actually a rental car, which means the company who rented out the car are out around 82 thousand dollars. That's a lot of money. I don't think the goons who drove this car here will ever be able to rent a car again or even be able to get a car loan.

I'm sure their insurance premiums will be through the roof. I wonder why they thought digging out the wheels would be a good idea. The wheels are what makes a car move, not the frame. It's baffling to see such pure asininity so plainly demonstrated for the world to see.