About Wills Sainte Claire
Wills Sainte Claire was an automobile brand manufactured by the C. H. Wills and Company, in Marysville, Michigan, from 1921-1927. Childe Harold Wills, the company founder, was a perfectionist and his automobile company focused on very high quality cars. Wills' mother was a fan of Lord Byron's poetry and Wills seldom used his full name.
Wills had been with Henry Ford, where metallurgy was his specialty. Wills invented Vanadium steel for the production of the Ford Model T. Wills was also a designer and is credited with designing the script "Ford Blue Oval" emblem that the company uses to this day.
Wills left Ford on his own terms and with a sizeable severance package of more than 1.5 million dollars, which he used to establish his own car company he originally named "Wills Saint Clair" – Wills for himself and "Saint Clair" for the Saint Clair River near which his new factory was located. Wills later added the extra e's, thinking that it elevated the cachet of the product.
The first Wills Sainte Claire rolled off the assembly line in 1921. Production was delayed due to metallurgy issues surrounding the use of molybdenum in castings, which Wills insisted be used in the production of the car in order to ensure its durability. Despite the durability of the cars, once production got underway most of Wills' executive staff abandoned him by 1922 because Wills was known to shut the whole assembly line down if a new and innovative method occurred to him. After going into receivership that year, the company was refinanced by a group of bankers from Boston and reincorporated as Wills Sainte Claire Incorporated in 1923.
