Harry S. Truman served two terms as the 33rd president (until 1953) but did so in a most unorthodox way. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the president in 1945 until he suddenly died on April 12. His Vice President was Truman, who took the reigns of a United States still entrenched in World War II, which wouldn’t end until September.
In February 1942, the government forced every automaker to stop building passenger vehicles to ration materials. Instead, they were instructed to build military cars and airplanes for the war effort. The ban lasted until October 1945, and Ford was the first company to return to passenger vehicle production.
The first post-war car Ford built — labeled “Production 1” — was a moonbeam gray (referred to as “white” by some) 1946 Super Deluxe Tudor Sedan, and it was given to Truman by Henry Ford II himself in September 1945. The image above is that of a 1948 model, which looked similar. Unsurprisingly, it was put together using leftover parts from 1942 models and was powered by a 3.9-liter V8 Mercury flathead that kicked out 100 hp.
While Truman technically “owned” the car, he never actually drove it. Why? According to reports, he was actually a dyed-in-the-wool Chrysler man. Remember, this was before the Former Presidents Act, so they could drive as they liked. When Truman left office, he purchased a brand new Chrysler New Yorker and subsequently went on a 2,500-mile road trip with his wife from Independence, Missouri, to the East Coast.
[Featured image by Sicnag via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 2.0]
