Though never a major player in the hand truck business , Stewart offered a broad mixture of new truck , including the 1935 - 1936 Stewart board and dump hand truck .
Stewart was a belittled regional maker of " assembled " light- and average - responsibility trucks . It had the eminence of building its own high - quality bodies . Stewart never vie with volume makers likeFordorChevrolet , or even with such intermediate - size challenger as Reo and International . But did beat some competition to low - production builders such as Federal , Brockway , and Diamond T.
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By 1935 , assay low - last sales in a depressed market , Stewart wreak out a 1/2 - gross ton line call the Buddy , which cost $ 495 for the bare physical body and $ 200-$300 more for finished pickups and panels . Hydraulicbrakesand all - steel grammatical construction were sport , but the Buddy ’s four - piston chamber Waukeshaenginewas low on performance , if high on fuel economy .
For those who needed more magnate and speed , Stewart provide a larger line of 1 - net ton human body for a wide variety of bodies , including what would become Stewart panels and Stewart ditch trucks . The Waukesha L - top dog six in these trucks had plenty of baron to handle normal highway focal ratio , and the 1 - tonners share clean lines with their handsome Buddy - base little brother .
Stewart establish good truck , but the times were against it . Registrations point off to 1,280 in 1936 and to 1,148 in 1937 . The company ’s dependable class , 1930 , had only seen 2,315 Stewarts register .
Even adding the frame from its Fort Erie , Ontario , meeting place plant during part of the 1930s , plus export sales ( which virtually dried up ) , Stewart simply lack the intensity or dealer base to become a major histrion .
Registrations average only about 800 unit per year in the profundity of the Depression , and the sharp business downswing of 1938 escort only 390 registered that year , followed by 70 for 1939 .
At that point , Stewart president T.R. Lippard defect to Federal , and Modern management took over , concentrating on weighed down - obligation model . Few were sold , and Stewart was account by 1942 .
