Yesterday a 20-year-old man was found dead after the vehicle with four young people inside was pulled down a rocky river near St Ives, in Cornwall.
One man also aged 20 escaped the Volvo saloon as it filled with water from severe flash flooding, and reported the three others missing.
A man aged 26 and a 17-year-old girl remain unaccounted for but rescuers last night vowed to "pull out all the stops" to find them before darkness halted the search.
The car got into difficulties in the early hours of Saturday while trying to make the crossing in the village of Zennor, in West Cornwall.
The body of a man aged 20 was recovered just after 7am yesterday downstream from where the Volvo S70 was found "fully submerged and full of water", Devon and Cornwall police said.
All those involved were local and had been out together.
Expert divers, the fire service, coastguard and rescue helicopters were this evening combing the rugged stretch of coast, 14 miles from Land's End for the missing women.
One man freed himself from the Volvo S70 before it was sucked out into the water on the B3306 between St Ives and St Just.
He called Ambulance Control at 1.41am on Saturday saying that three others were lost.
The tragedy has drawn comparison with the flash floods at nearby Boscastle in 2004 where a 10-foot high torrent of water surged through the village.
The most recent disaster occurred as flooding was reported in several parts of St Ives, due to the heavy rainfall overnight.
Flooding was reported at three hotels in St Ives, with the St Ives Bay, and the Chy an Albany being evacuated.
Residents forced to leave were put up at a nearby hotel.
Zennor's only pub, The Tinner's Arms, built in 1271, managed to open at 11am despite being deluged with a foot of flash flood water.
A barman said today: "A group of locals all pitched in to help us open."
It is understood that the man who escaped from the car works at the Gurnard's Head, a gastro-pub one mile away.
John and Mary Clifford found that their cottage in Zennor quickly filled with up to a foot of water in the worst flash flooding they had ever experienced.
Mr Clifford, 68, who worked in advertising until he retired, said it was a "desperate" situation and that the coastal road where the car was swept away was prone to flooding.
He said today: "The water was just coming down the road and down the steps around the front of the house. We are still dealing with it now. It is about a foot deep in places. Because of the uneveness of the cottage it is higher in some spots than others. Even at its lowest it is six to nine inches.
"Apart from the water the mud and sludge is devastating."
He said he did not know those involved in the crash but knew the road involved as a flooding blackspot.
He added: "The stream had obviously burst its banks. It starts off the top of the moors and goes under the road, out to sea. The stream there does get swollen very, very quickly. The road takes so much water off the moors that it can't cope.
"It's a desperate situation. It can happen often but last night was a real exception. I've never seen rain like it. It was amazing."
The chair of Zennor parish council Mike Hindley said: "It was freak conditions. My home was flooded and the village pub was also under six inches of water. Everywhere looked like a river.
"The stream runs under the road and there's a small bridge over it, but it is not normally up that high."
A digger was brought in this to aid the search, with 20 police officers, police dogs, the coastguard and fire service involved.
A spokesman for Devon and Cornwall police said yesterday: "It appears the the occupants were known to each other and were out with each other. We hope that the missing persons managed to get out and made off on foot somewhere.
"We are searching for survivors. Officers aim to carry out as thorough a search as possible before nightfall. They are pulling out all the stops."
The rescue attempt also involved thermal imaging, the RNLI and helicopters from the police and RNAS Culdrose.
The car was found 100 yards down stream and the dead man further down the watercourse.
Police have yet to formally identify the dead man.
An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Zennor is known for its rugged landscape and meandering streams.
With a population of around 200, most of the land is owned by traditional Cornish farming families.
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