Luxury Land Rover sinks into New Jersey surf in photo shoot fail

May 18 (UPI) -- A couple visiting a New Jersey beach captured video of the photo shoot fail that resulted when a man's luxury Land Rover started sinking in the surf.

Chris Gillich, who was visiting Island Beach State Park with his wife, Megan, captured video Tuesday evening of a Land Rover sinking in the sand and shallow water while its owner furiously tried to rescue it with a shovel.

"We see some splashing down by the water and low and behold, there's this white Land Rover down in the surf," Gillich told WPIX-TV. "When we first got there, it was only up to about, just below the axle."

"And when the waves were crashing into the truck, it was rocking," he said.

He said the driver had been speeding up and down the beach before he stopped to take some photos of the vehicle, which was when the sinking started.

"As much as we tried to tell him, 'don't shovel you're only going to dig it deeper,' he kept trying," Gillich said.

A tow truck arrived to pull the SUV out of the surf after it had been sinking for about an hour. Police said the man was not ticketed because he had a permit to drive on the beach.

Gillich captured a second video of the Land Rover driving away with obvious electrical damage that caused the headlights to blink.

"The waves beat the hell out of this car, but the owner arrogantly told me that it's okay because it's waterproof. He also felt that it was necessary to keep it running cuz if he shut it off it would not start again. He refused to take the advice to get rid of it because the vehicle's a limited edition," Gillich wrote on Facebook.