The Jeep Cherokee XJ was one of the first modern sport utility vehicles and it has retained a loyal following despite the fact that the model went out of production in the United States 17 years ago.
The XJ was a capable off-roader, but this particular model got its trail rated badge revoked in speculator fashion. While the clip doesn’t show the moment when disaster struck, you can see something catastrophic happened when the driver attempted to get out of a mud hole.
According to the video’s description, the incident occurred at Cliffs Insane Terrain off-road park in Marseilles, Illinois. Everything appeared to be going fine until the driver of the Cherokee misjudged the depth of the water and ended up getting stuck in a deep mud hole.
The exact chain of events isn’t entirely clear, but it appears the force a Wrangler attempting to winch the model free caused the “rusty frame” to snap into two pieces.
The snap caused some serious damage as it effectively broke the tailgate into two pieces while also ripping the headliner and breaking the rear window. That isn’t the only issue as you can see the rear section of the unibody effectively broke off. This exposes the gas tank while also leaving a number of other components without support.
While the damage looks pretty bad, the Jeep was reportedly able to drive itself back to the parking lot without any further issues.
Warning: Video has NSFW language