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The ownership trail goes cold until one morning in 1973, when Bob Creason’s son-in-law, Reed Whittaker, was taking a break at work. With him in the break room was a coworker who knew that Reed’s father-in-law collected old cars. The coworker was browsing some classified ads when he noticed one for a 1953 Chrysler New Yorker. The ad mentioned that the car had once been owned by Harry Truman.

“There’s a Truman car for sale,” the coworker said to Reed. “I bet your father-in-law would be interested in that.”

Reed immediately called Bob and told him about the car. Although Bob preferred to purchase vehicles manufactured before World War II, Truman’s New Yorker intrigued him. “Dad was a big history buff,” Carey Creason explained. “He liked to know the stories behind the cars.” Bob also had a soft spot for Chryslers, since Gladys’s father had worked for the company as a parts manager. He also had a soft spot for Truman, for whom Bob had voted in 1948, the first presidential election in which he’d ever cast a ballot. And Harry had just passed away the previous winter.

Bob wanted that car. But he was busy that day, so he asked Reed to go buy it for him. Reed called the number in the ad. The seller lived in Riverside, Missouri, just north of Kansas City. He said he’d recently bought the car from a local dealership. Reed told his boss he was taking the afternoon off and hurried up to Riverside.

The purchase price was eight hundred dollars.

After the car was driven back to Bob’s farm, it was parked outside. As far as anybody knows, it hasn’t been driven since that day. “Dad planned to restore it,” Carey said, “but he never got around to it because of the time and money it would have taken.”

Apparently the Chrysler had been in at least one accident since Harry owned it, because both front fenders had been replaced. The new fenders were white, which gave it the appearance of a police car since the rest of the car was still black. Carey recalled how, when she was a little girl, she would play Dukes of Hazzard, with Harry Truman’s New Yorker standing in for Sheriff Rosco’s cruiser and a 1936 DeSoto substituting for Bo and Luke’s Dodge Charger, the General Lee.

For twenty-five years the car sat outside, exposed to the harsh Kansas elements. In 1998, Bob built a new barn and towed the Chrysler inside it. The car hasn’t moved since then.

Harry Truman’s 1953 Chrysler New Yorker as it appeared in 1973, the year Bob Creason bought it (left), and as it appeared in 2010 (right).

After confirming the vehicle’s authenticity, I began to examine it more closely. It took several tries, but Carey finally managed to open the hood, exposing the car’s formerly state-of-the-art V-8 Hemi engine, which was now a dormant hulk. Also exposed was a large quantity of what Carey determined to be raccoon poop. “Oh my,” she said. “I’m very glad he wasn’t in there when I opened it.”

The chrome wire wheels were still intact, though badly corroded. The once-luxuriant tan velour interior was crumbling, the upholstery literally turning to dust. On a hunch we checked the glove compartment, but we found nothing. We weren’t able to get the trunk open, so if Harry stashed anything incriminating in there, it remains to be discovered.

I later posted photos of the car on the Internet and was contacted by a Chrysler enthusiast, who pointed out something unusual about the car: the hardware on the doors was from a top-of-the-line Imperial, not a New Yorker. Harry had thought the Imperial was “too swanky,” but Chrysler included some elements of it on his car anyway.

Carey told me she doesn’t know what her family will eventually do with the car. The cost of restoring it is prohibitive. But she assured me that, ultimately, the family will find a buyer who will appreciate and honor the car’s historic lineage. In a small way, this battered Chrysler connects her family to Harry Truman, and she would like to preserve that connection.

I asked Carey if I could sit in the driver’s seat. “Of course,” she said,