First, a bit of a story: when I was a kid, we would regularly go to local truck shows, and among the Petes, KWs, FLs, etc, were typically one or two of these really old looking trucks with "Corbitt" on them. There were normally only a couple, at most, and I'd never heard of them before, in conversation or on the internet. I've always gravitated to the oddballs, so these fascinated me for years and I always liked seeing them. Eventually, when I became interested enough and able to research such things via the internet, I finally learned the history of this unique fallen flag manufacturer. And now I'll give you a short summary of that history!
Our story begins with one Richard J. Corbitt, who started his business career buying and selling tobacco, the "Golden Leaf", a North Carolina staple, for the Taylor Tobacco Company.
He eventually moved on to building horse-drawn carriages and wagons in 1899 as the Corbitt Buggy Company, with his shop in Henderson, NC.
At startup he had competition in the form of four other horse-drawn equipment manufacturers, all based in Henderson.
Richard's company was particularly succesful over the next several years, which resulted in him being able to purchase the other four comapnies and fold them into his.
Sometime between 1905 and 1907, Richard produced his first automobile, or "motor buggy", as it was known, which was chain-driven.
Mr. Corbitt saw that the automobile was quickly becoming widely popular, so he decided to begin manufacturing his own autos.
Remember, this all is happening in the early twentieth century in essentially rural North Carolina - thus, though there were experienced craftsmen available for the horse-drawn equipment building trade, a well established industry, there were no workers with experience in heavy industry, expecially automobile manufacturing, available in the area. So Mr. Corbitt imported some - he brought in workers from Detroit, a city that had abundant heavy industry, and of course, automobile manufacturers, and the skilled workers that went with them.
Now, during this period of the early 1900's, automobile manufacturers were popping up everywhere, many providing good products, but just not able to match the big comapnies in quantity, quality, price, and distribution. Corbitt fell into this category, losing money on every vehicle they built and sold.
Now we arrive in a new decade, 1910, and Mr. Corbitt sees a new product becoming popular and widespread - trucks.
Corbitt moves on to produce their first truck in 1910, and by 1913 this becomes their primary business, and manufacture of autos is dropped, and the company becomes profitable.
Now, approaching the late 1910s, Corbitt is a profitable company, but something is coming that will see the need for totally new and unique equipment, and companies to manufacure it. What comes is The Great War, or World War 1, and this sees Corbitt gear up for military production, and their designated task is to build personnel carriers, which they do. Also during this time they build North Carolina's first schoolbus, in 1917 specifically.
Corbitt does well producing military equipment during WW1, and continue building such equiment throughout the next couple decades.
In the early 1930's they introduce a line of 4x4 and 6x6 trucks for the military - this is superb timing on their part as just a decade later they'll again be called on to provide vehicles for the nation at war, to help protect and defend an endangered world. World War 2 arrives and the nation is again pulled into an international conflict on an immense scale, and Corbitt provides their various military products throughout the conflict, with Corbitt vehicles being used in every World War 2 theater.
After World War 2 concludes, Corbitt continues to innovate and introduces a new military vehicle, the T-33. They built 2 of these 8x8 prototype vehicles for the Army to trial - they had 1/4 inch armor plate and were powered by a 450 hp radial aircraft engine.
Though being the second largest truck in the world at the time, the military was not interested and the two prototypes were the only ones ever produced, but were very unfortunately dismantled/scrapped at some point.
By the early 1950's Corbitt had many interesting achievements to its name; a Corbitt had moved Howard Hughes' famous "Spruce Goose" wooden airplane from Hughes Aircraft in Culver City, CA to Long Beach, CA, a distance of 28 miles. This was the largest load ever hauled on a road at the time. Corbitt also built special order cabovers for Turner Transfer of Greensboro, NC - which allowed 4 to five men to ride across the cab, with a "sleeper" area under the windshield. These were powered by an 8 cylinder English Gardner diesel. Corbitt also tried their hand at farm tractors, producing a few different models powered by gas, kerosene, or diesel. Interestingly, the vast majority of these were exported to Brazil, with only a few sold in the US - thankfully a couple are preserved.
Throughout their history they'd produce buggies, automobiles, light trucks, heavy trucks, trailers, buses, military vehicles, and tractors.
The trucks and buses were powered mostly by a Continental gas engines, or either Cummins or Hercules diesels.
As with their early history and the automobile building being overshadowed by the major manufacturers and being ended, eventually their profits dwindled and Mr. Corbitt sold the company off in 1952 to United Industrial Syndicate, who were headquartered in New York City. The business quickly wound down after this with main production halting in 1954. Over the next few years a few trucks were constructed from remaining parts, with the final Corbitt being built for Norris Collins of Franklin Oil Company of Franklinville, NC in 1958.
In its heyday, Corbitt was the largest truck builder in the South, and one of the few vehicle builders here, as well.
Richard Corbitt would scarcely outlive his business - he was born on February 15, 1873, and died on May 16, 1961.
Today, a portion of the original manufacturing buildings remain in Henderson, here - https://goo.gl/maps/5nCME2cqHWXVjmFK9
Also, there's the Corbitt Preservation Society, an incredible group preserving the history of this amazing fallen flag!
Personally, I'd love to be able to purchase one of these trucks and preserve it, but that'll have to wait until I have the proper facility for such a treasure to reside in. Not to mention they are very rare, and hardly ever come up for sale!
I hope you enjoyed this little history lesson - I certainly enjoyed researching it and learning about it!
Thanks for reading!
Never knew all that. Thanks for doing the research. I bet a lot of people at the truck show’s probably don’t know all this history.
Fascinating history hopefully NC will honor and preserve this innovator and visionary’s legacy