The Hewitt Motor Company of New York was founded by Edward Ringwood Hewitt in 1905 to produce motor cars. Between 1906 and 1907 it managed to offer cars with one, four and eight cylinders; the single-cylinder car with an epicyclic transmission and the eight with a large V-8 of 50/60 hp. One source claims that this was America’s first V-8; another that the Buffum Company merits that distinction. It appears that both these companies used engines based on the French Antoinette aero engine.
But after 1907 Hewitt concentrated entirely on the production of heavy trucks. The company merged with Mack and American Saurer in 1912 – and Edward Hewitt remained on Mack’s engineering staff until the 1940s.
This truck was powered by a four-cylinder vertical gasoline engine of 4¼ inches bore by 5½ inches stroke – which works out at 312 cu in or 5,113 cc. And there remained a link with the very first Hewitt car: an epicyclic transmission (or, as our American cousins called it, planetary).
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