Brian Linklater and his mate Kevin were driving along Gorge Road recently, 20 kilometres east of Katherine in the Northern Territory, when they hit a feral buffalo.
"Basically out of the blue, here appears this buffalo and bang, [we ran] straight into him at about 80 kilometres per hour," he said.
"There was this god-almighty crash.
"We both had sore ribs from where the airbags had smashed us and a bit of whiplash.
"The car was a complete write-off. The whole front of the vehicle was completely smashed in … and I can't believe we weren't injured."
Mr Linklater said the buffalo, which would have weighed more than 500 kilograms, was killed on impact.
"The buffalo was laying [dead] on the side of the road. We had obviously carried him on top of the car for quite a few metres."
Dead buffalo goes missing
Not many people would taxidermy a buffalo that almost killed them, but that is what Mr Linklater wants to do.
The only problem is, the dead buffalo has gone missing.
"It was quite a traumatic experience hitting the buffalo, and we really wanted to go back and get its head as a bit of a memento of the experience," Mr Linklater said.
"So we went back [the next afternoon] to go and collect him and he was gone.
"So we've put out a search to try and find the buffalo. We don't want the whole buffalo, just his head."
His Facebook post calling for leads on the location of the buffalo's head has attracted plenty of attention around the Top End, but so far no one has solved the mystery.
"We have had zero leads so far, but I am happy to offer a reward for the return of the buffalo head," Mr Linklater said.
"If we get it back we will mount it on the wall and it will be one of those memories to look back on and go 'We survived that night'."
Mr Linklater suspects the buffalo has been taken by someone hungry for some wild meat.
