Hewson Rocket

The Hewson Rocket was conceived by Southern Californian, William “Shem’ Hewson, who set out to design a low priced sportster that was fun to drive and have the latest in rocket age aerodynamics. Few other cars have ever employed a trapazoidal wheel pattern, where a car’s front and rear axles differ significantly from each other in length (meaning it leaves four distinct sets of tire tracks) And only the exhalted Citreon DS was a comercial success. But whereas the DS was considered a “Goddess” among cars, the Rocket proved to be all too mortal.

Even though it looked out of this world.

www.LaneMotorMuseum.com

 When viewing the 1947 Hewson Rocket, the first thing to jump out is its shimmering smooth shape. Shem Hewson wanted a cutting edge look for his car, with no sharp edges or protrusions. To build it, he commissioned Coachcraft, Inc., a North Hollywood design shop that was well known among the elite of the SoCal car culture. Coachcraft’s noted body designer, Rudy Stoessel, created and all-aluminum shell that almost completely envelopes the wheels, with flush headlight covers and tail-light lenses, and having no outside door handles. It looked like a hovercraft out of a science fiction movie…which was probably the idea.

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Like with the DS, the severe taper of the Rocket’s bullet shaped rear was made possible by positioning the back wheels closer together on their axle. But Shem Hewson’s math didn’t quite add up. The Rocket wasn’t a front driver, with a sophisticated driveline and suspension. And its engine wasn’t light and compact like the DS. The Rocket used a Ford “Baby 60” flathead V8 that was mounted behind the cockpit, driving the rear wheels through a truncated solid axle. This imaginative mid-engine setup was highly unusual for the day. But the combination of an upright engine, rear weight bias, and narrow track, made for some truly evil handling characteristics.

 So maybe it was fortunate then that the Rocket never even came close to reaching production. Before settling on the tried and true Ford V8, Hewson had experimented with a couple of different engines of his own design - both a V4 and a V6. And who knows, maybe one of them would have helped make this Rocket more stable. Instead, the efforts burned though all Shem’s capital. And so by the time Coachcraft had completed the car, he didn’t have the money to pay them for it. In lieu of payment, they kept the only Rocket ever built. It stayed in Coachcraft’s front lobby as a showpiece for the next dozen years, before being auctioned off in 1959. It eventually, found its way to that curator of curious cars, the Lane Motor Museum in Nashville, TN.