A Winnipeg escape artist got into hot water Friday — he went through a city car wash while chained to the roof rack of his SUV.

Dean Gunnarson, 44, escapes his chains Friday as he travels through a Winnipeg car wash as part of an annual Halloween stunt. (CBC)The stunt was Dean Gunnarson's annual Halloween tribute to one of his heroes, Harry Houdini, who died on Oct. 31, 1926.

Gunnarson, who bills himself as the "world's greatest escape artist," was chained, locked and handcuffed onto the roof of the SUV as he entered the Chamois car wash on St. James Street.

"It's not as death-defying as hanging by my toes over Hoover Dam, or being locked in a shark cage underwater, or chained and thrown out of an airplane as some of my other escapes, but the element of danger is there," he said before the escape attempt.

The only hiccup occurred when a rooftop cleaner brush caught a chain around his neck, but a built-in safety mechanism quickly stopped the device and the washing resumed seconds later.

Gunnarson managed to wriggle out of his restraints before reaching the high-velocity blow-dryer at the end of the cycle, but not before he had been seared by hot water and wax.

Dave Watson, the owner of the car wash, said he has detailed many rare cars but has never seen anything quite this exotic before.

In his 1983 escape, Gunnarson was chained up inside a coffin lowered into the Red River — but he nearly didn't make it out alive. Gunnarson, then 19, was under water more than four minutes before rescue crews retrieved him.

"I was dead. I got to see the lights and the tunnels. I got closer to Houdini than I ever wanted to get," he said Friday.

"I guess wherever I was going, they didn't want me and they kicked me back to keep escaping another day."

Sporting red but smoother skin from the waxing, Gunnarson said next October he wants to be buried alive for seven days then escape on Halloween.

With files from the Canadian Press