A RUSTING barnacle-covered car hauled from a lake could be a major breakthrough in a 15-year-old cold case.

Expert divers Dan Pritchard and his scuba partner, Bill McIntosh, stumbled upon a grim find when they discovered the submerged Chrysler at a beach on Long Island.

The dive team believe they found the human remains of resident Robert Long, who went missing in December 2010 aged 62.

Long was on his way to the local liquor store when he was reported missing.

Over a decade later, specialists believe they have found the remains of his body inside a submerged Chrysler PT Cruiser at Cedar Beach.

Monday’s discovery launched an urgent investigation by Suffolk Couny Police who have sent the remains for an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

The remains have yet to be identified.

Detective Lt. Kevin Beyrer said on Tuesday afternoon: “There is a missing person who we suspect this driver to be.

“We made a courtesy notification to the family, but we have not definitively made any sort of identification.”

The pair of divers reportedly used kayaks equipped with special side-scan sonar devices in the search.

Sonar systems are used to create an image of large areas of the sea floor.

After several hours, they found what appeared to be human bones inside the rusting vehicle.

They promptly called the police who performed their own search and pulled the vehicle out of the water with a crane.

A force spokesman told the New York Post: “We started this morning with the Marine Bureau divers going into the water at low tide.

“They examined the interior of the vehicle and tried to recover whatever they could from within the vehicle.” 

The shock discovery comes just weeks after a suspected human bone was found washed up in Rhode Island, near Taylor Swift’s beachside mansion.

The gruesome find came after cops were called to the ritzy Watch Hill neighborhood at about 9:30am.

The remains were transferred to the Rhode Island Medical Examiner’s Office, said the Westerly Police Department Detective Division.

Taylor Day, a Westerly resident, said she saw three police cars and a medical examiner “pulling in behind me.”

Day said, “It was probably a couple football fields away from Taylor Swift’s house and the Ocean House.

“I would never expect anything like that — especially not in Watch Hill.”

She added, “It kind of alarmed me, and it was just something very out of the ordinary for Westerly.”

Police do not suspect foul play, but Day said she would “definitely disagree with that.”