In 1919, prominent American metallurgist Childe Harold Wills left Henry Ford to design a new automobile which he called the Wills Sainte Claire. With a $1.5 million severance from Ford, he formed the C. H. Wills Company and set about building not only a factory, but a model town containing workers’ homes, schools and a park. The town was named Marysville, Michigan, after Wills’ wife, and the cars were christened Wills Sainte Claires. The name was a combination of his own, along with the Saint Clair River near his new factory. Wills added the extra “e,” thinking that it elevated the brand cachet.
Molybdenum steel was used so extensively in the Wills Sainte Claire design that factory literature called them “The Molybdenum Cars.” When the first Wills Sainte Claire Model A-68 rolled off the Marysville assembly line in the spring of 1921, virtually every component subject to even minimal stress was made of molybdenum steel, including the crankshaft, connecting rods, camshaft, gearbox gears and shafts, propeller shaft, frame, springs, front axle, steering knuckles and wheels.
Wills’ engineering is demonstrated in this 1922 roadster which has a 60-degree V-8 engine with two overhead camshafts, one to each bank of cylinders. The generator and fan are driven from the gear case, thus eliminating the usual fan belt. In 1924, a long-stroke overhead camshaft engine, OHC, with six cylinders in line was added. Notably, while still at Ford, Wills designed the Ford script logo. From 1933, until his death in 1940, C. H. Wills was chief metallurgist at Chrysler.
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