The Corbitt Company was located in Henderson, NC, in Northeastern North Carolina. Corbitt was located in Vance County which had a population of 32,000 in 1942 and has about the same population today. Not much has changed there.
Mr. Corbitt came to Henderson from Enfield, NC in 1895 as a buyer/seller of tobacco. He foresaw the big companies dominating the tobacco industry, so he decided to build his first buggy in 1899 and continued to build buggies through 1907. During that time there were four buggy manufacturers in Henderson, and Mr. Corbitt was the only survivor. In 1907 he manufactured his first automobile, called a "horseless buggy". In 1912 he built 13 automobiles. He had imported some labor from Detroit to have workers knowledgeable about automobiles. But he was losing money on every automobile.
In 1913 he decided to build trucks instead of automobiles. In 1916 he built his first intra city bus. In 1917 he built his first dump truck. The Corbitt Company always made money, except when they were building automobiles. In WWI Corbitt supplied 4000 trucks to the Army and Navy. In the 1930's Corbitt built 4x4's for the U.S. Army. It was a Corbitt that pulled Howard Hughes' huge airplane, the "Spruce Goose" from its hanger at Long Beach, CA in the 1940's. At the time, it was the largest bulk load ever moved over the highway.
In 1934 when the Auburn Automobile Company folded, Mr. Corbitt bought up all the Auburn sheet metal parts and used Auburn fenders, hoods, and grills on the 11,000 lb./13,000 lb. GVW Corbitts for 2 or 3 Years. They were an extremely handsome truck. None of these are known to have survived. Every major fleet in NC and SC bought the pre- 1940 Corbitt tractor.
During WWII Corbitt built 5500 6- ton 6x6 prime mover trucks for the U.S. Army. White and Brockway built the same model truck for the Army. Corbitt built 5 prototypes of a truck for the Army which looks were modern even today- it was 48" in height with 1/4" armor plate, and a Hercules engine in the rear driving through a transfer case and had a cab design that would fit right into the 1980's. As a new engineer in 1942 Mel was told to design a truck with this transfer case, and Mel asked "What the hell is a transfer case?" Mel said he could not remember a day when Corbitt did not have an Army contract. Corbitt was a small enough company that they could make quick modifications for the Army. The Army demanded an all steel cab, so Corbitt discontinued the wooden frame cab from the 30's and built nothing but all steel cabs from WWII on.
Corbitt made their own frames, buying the rails from Parish, and drilling the frames and fabricating them. The assembly line moved quite slowly, with the first truck pulling the rest up the line by chain.
During WWII Corbitt made 5500 trucks. The biggest production month after the war was 130 trucks.
The complete engineering department consisted of 5 men. Maximum number of employees was about 325.
Every Corbitt went through a dynamometer test and a road test, ready to pull freight without any further preparation.
The State of North Carolina had 550 Corbitt 4x4 trucks still in service in 1954 when Corbitt went out of business. Corbitt had made crane carriers, Model C666, with both I-beam frames and frame rail frames. Corbitt made 25 big cabovers for Turner Transfer, a specialized machinery mover in High Point, NC. They sat 4 to 5 men across the cab, slept 3 and had a bed over the engine under the hood. They were powered with the big English Gardener diesel engine. Corbitt built lots of freight trailers, for most of the fleets in NC, SC, and VA. Longest trailer built was a 30' unit. Mel showed a slide of a prototype bus from the late 1940's, but it was just a dream on paper and was never produced. The most popular color in the 40's were red and black.
Corbitt used many Cummins JB6 120 HP diesels. Corbitt got the first 50 JTS supercharged 150 HP diesels from Cummins and had so many problems it was discontinued. Fleets tried to haul freight with the smaller engine and they just did not hold up against the heavier models.
Mel showed a slide of "Geraldine" a 1951 Corbitt that had run over 2,000,000 miles at the time. The tractor was sold to The Daniels Company by dealer R. E. Daniels. It has been in all continental 48 states. It was still running in 1981 and had over 2,600,000 miles at that time. In 1984 it was sold to another trucker who made it into a dump truck.
In the early 1950's Corbitt built farm tractors in Henderson, very similar to the Cockshutt in design. There were three versions - running on kerosene, gas, or diesel. Most all were imported to Brazil.
In 1952 Mr. Corbitt was over 70 years old and in poor health. He had two sons. The son who he had hoped would carry on had died. The Corbitt family owned 90+% of the company stock. Mr. Corbitt, who was a fine gentleman, discussed the continuation of the company with many employees, and it was agreed to sell the company, as no one was really ready to run the company.
Corbitt always built a heavy duty truck, using 5/16" heat treated chrome manganese frames when others were using 1/4" carbon steel frames. Corbitt just didn't think they could continue to compete with the "big guys".
One of the largest users of Corbitt tractors was R. R. Riss & Son, from Kansas City. Riss bought tractor-trailers completely lettered and road ready. They could send a driver to pick up the new unit and pick up freight on the way home.
The company was sold in 1952 to United Industrial Syndicate, New York City. They specialized in liquidating companies and liquidated the equipment and the buildings.
In 1954 Corbitt built only 40 trucks, a few farm tractors, and some travel drills.
After Corbitt closed, Wallace White continued to service Corbitt trucks already produced, for 7 years in one of the former plant buildings. Wallace even built 5 or 6 Corbitt trucks from the parts he acquired, although he did not have the machinery to make new parts.
