The Corbitt Motor Truck Company was an American truck manufacturer located in Henderson, North Carolina. Some Corbitt trucks were used to build fire apparatus.
The company went out of business in 1953.
History[]
The Corbitt Buggy Company was founded in 1899 by Richard Corbitt. The company began to build automobiles in 1907 and the company name was changed to the Corbitt Automobile Company in 1913. The company began to build trucks in 1910, and soon found the truck market to be more profitable. Automobile production ended in 1913, and the company became the Corbitt Motor Truck Company in 1916.
The company initially built trucks of 1-5 tons capacity and by the 1930s was building trucks up to 15 tons capacity. In 1915 the company added school and transit buses to its products. Corbitt produced trucks for the U.S. Military during World War 1, and in 1933 began to build 4x4 and 6x6 trucks for the U.S. Army. The company would build several thousand trucks for the U.S. Military during World War 2.
The owner Richard Corbitt retired in 1952. With nobody interested in taking over the company, Corbitt went out of business the following year and its assets were sold. Some of the employees bought a stock of parts and continued to service existing trucks for a number of years after the company closed. They even built a complete truck in 1958, but found the demand was not there to support additional production.
Some Corbitt trucks were used to build commercial chassis fire apparatus, but the company is most clearly tied to the fire service through the Oren Roanoke Corporation. Oren used Corbitt trucks for their custom chassis from 1949 to 1963. When Corbitt closed, Oren bought about 50 unfinished trucks which were later completed as fire apparatus. The last Corbitt truck would actually be built by Oren in 1963, 10 years after Corbitt had gone out of business.
Sources[]
- Herman, Thomas L. Oren Fire Apparatus Photo Archive. Hudson, WI: Iconografix, 2005.
- Georgano, G.N. Editor The Complete Encyclopedia of Commercial Vehicles. Iola, Wisconsin: Krause Publications, 1979.