Wills Sainte Claire A-68 Roadster: The Ford Engineer’s Dream Car
- Jun 18
- 7 min read
Updated: Jun 22
After helping shape the Ford Model T, C. Harold Wills walked away from Ford in 1919 with a fortune and a radical idea: build a car that was stronger, smarter and better engineered.
Born on June 1, 1878, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Wills trained as a machinist and mechanical draftsman before joining Henry Ford’s early ventures. As one of Ford’s key early engineers and metallurgists, he championed the use of vanadium alloy steel, helping give the Model T its legendary reputation for toughness. He is also credited with designing the famous flowing Ford script logo.
However, Wills was not content to keep refining the same basic formula. Ford resisted major changes to the Model T, while Wills wanted to push automotive design forward.
By March 15, 1919, Wills officially resigned from Ford. With a reported $1.5 million severance from Ford, he began building an automobile of his own.
A Factory, a Community and the Gray Goose
Wills established C.H. Wills and Company in Marysville, Michigan, near the Saint Clair River. The location inspired the Wills Sainte Claire name, while the company’s emblem, the Gray Goose, gave the automobile one of the most distinctive identities of the 1920s.
Wills’ vision extended beyond the automobile itself. In Marysville, he built not only a factory, but a model community with workers’ homes, schools and a park. Period accounts also describe a community center, assistance for workers facing layoffs, Christmas gifts for workers’ families and other welfare-minded policies that reflected Wills’ unusually personal approach to industry.
The Wills Sainte Claire name combined Wills’ own name with the nearby Saint Clair River. According to period accounts, Wills added the extra “e” to Sainte because he believed it gave the name a more elevated character.
“The All Mo-lyb-den-um Car”
The Wills Sainte Claire’s most important secret was not visible at first glance. It was in the metal.
Wills had made his name at Ford through his understanding of metallurgy, and for his own car he moved beyond vanadium steel to molybdenum steel. At the time, molybdenum was still an emerging alloying material in the automotive world. Wills believed it could create stronger, lighter components capable of withstanding the stresses of a high-quality automobile.
On January 22, 1921, Wills publicly announced the name of his automobile along with its Gray Goose emblem. When the first production car rolled off the Marysville line on February 19, 1921, it represented a major leap in American automotive metallurgy.
Factory literature called Wills Sainte Claire automobiles “The Molybdenum Cars.” The company also promoted the A-68 as “The All Mo-lyb-den-um Car,” spelling the word in syllables so customers could pronounce it.
The Model A-68 used molybdenum steel extensively throughout the chassis. The crankshaft, connecting rods, camshaft, gearbox gears, propeller shaft, frame, leaf springs, front axle, steering knuckles and distinctive disc wheels all reflected Wills’ belief that better metallurgy could create a better car.
The company leaned heavily into this identity, promoting the car as “The All Mo-lyb-den-um Car,” spelling the word in syllables so customers could pronounce it. In an era when many buyers judged quality by size and weight, Wills was making the opposite argument: that a car could be stronger because it was smarter.
Even the disc wheels reflected that philosophy. The tire inflation valves were placed on the inside of the wheels rather than protruding outward, preserving their clean, uncluttered appearance.
An Aircraft-Inspired V-8
At the heart of the A-68 was a remarkable 60-degree V-8 engine. Inspired by advanced World War I Hispano-Suiza aircraft engine design, it brought aviation-inspired engineering to the American road.
This was no ordinary early 1920s engine. The 265.5-cubic-inch V-8 V-8 used shaft-driven single overhead camshafts, one per bank, at a time when many luxury cars still relied on simpler side-valve designs. It produced 67 brake horsepower, strong output for its size and era.
The details were obsessive. The overhead cams and auxiliary drives used specialized two-piece gears designed to reduce gear lash and mechanical noise. The valves were made from different steel alloys depending on heat and stress, with an automatic adjustment mechanism to compensate for thermal expansion.
The engine was also highly integrated. It used no water pump, relying instead on thermo-syphon cooling. There were no belts or pulleys in the usual sense; the fan was gear-driven and designed to disengage at speed to save horsepower. The starter-generator was placed neatly between the banks of the V, adding to the compact, jewel-like arrangement.
One of the cleverest details was the intake manifold. Water circulated around the fuel passage, allowing engine heat to help vaporize the mixture before combustion. It was exactly the kind of solution Wills favored: practical, compact and deeply thought through.
The V-8’s heavy 77-pound three-bearing crankshaft and large flywheel gave it strong low-speed torque. Shifts through the 3-speed manual gearbox required patience, but the reward was smooth, relaxed power and a soft burble from the dual exhausts. The ignition system used two sets of points, with each bank of cylinders managed separately.
Lightness, Balance and a Different Kind of Luxury
The Wills Sainte Claire was not trying to be the biggest car on the road. It was trying to be the best-engineered.
A contemporary Cadillac V-8 roadster weighed well over 3,800 pounds and produced 60 horsepower from a larger 315-cubic-inch side-valve engine. The Wills A-68 Roadster weighed just over 3,100 pounds and produced 67 horsepower from its smaller overhead-cam V-8.
That difference reveals Wills’ real philosophy. He was not simply chasing power. He was reducing weight, lowering mass, cutting unsprung weight and mounting everything on a stiff chassis to create a car that felt unusually composed for its era.
With its 121-inch wheelbase, lightweight axles and careful chassis design, the A-68 earned praise for its controlled ride, accurate steering and relaxed cruising ability. Similar roadsters were capable of maintaining 55 to 60 mph with unusual comfort for the period, and the V-8 had enough power to make the car feel genuinely fast in a world where many roads were still rough and speed limits were low.
Clever Details Everywhere
The A-68 was full of small engineering ideas that reveal how deeply Wills thought about the driver’s experience.
It used a multi-disk clutch to help prevent driveline shock. It had a built-in transmission lock for security. The rear axle housing rode in lubricated bronze bushings to reduce squeaks and rattles on rough roads. Its dual exhaust system, which can look surprisingly modern today, was part of the car’s original character.
The lighting was especially advanced. The Wills Sainte Claire featured Miro-Tilt, magnetically operated dipping headlight reflectors, a cowl courtesy light that helped illuminate the running boards and one of the automotive industry’s earliest known production backup lights.
The interior and controls also reflected the car’s upscale ambitions. The windshield could be opened for ventilation, the steering wheel carried controls for lighting and ignition adjustment and the dash included instruments such as an ammeter, oil pressure gauge and speedometer. The car even carried its fuel gauge at the rear tank, a detail that feels charmingly old-fashioned today because the driver had to step out to check it.
The brakes were rear-wheel mechanical drums, but the system was more nuanced than that simple description suggests. Early Wills Sainte Claire cars used braking surfaces at the rear wheels only, with internal and external braking action on those rear drums. Later Wills Sainte Claire models would adopt four-wheel hydraulic brakes, but this 1922 A-68 belongs to the earlier mechanical-brake generation.
Proving It on the Road
The Wills Sainte Claire was not just impressive on paper. Its engineering proved itself on the road.
In 1926, a Wills Sainte Claire set a San Francisco-to-New York record of less than three and a half days, a dramatic demonstration of durability, speed and long-distance capability. For a company built around the idea that better materials and smarter engineering could create a better automobile, the run was powerful proof.
The Price of Perfection
Wills was an exacting perfectionist. If he or his team found a better way to build a part, he would stop production to make the improvement. That mindset created an exceptional automobile, but it created chaos for manufacturing.
The car was intended to sell around $2,000, but the price soon approached $3,000. Some accounts suggest that once fully equipped, the cost could climb even higher. That placed the Wills Sainte Claire in competition with established luxury marques such as Packard and Lincoln. Many buyers struggled to understand why a smaller, lighter car should cost as much as a larger prestige automobile, even if the engineering underneath was far more advanced.
Unlike Ford’s simple, affordable Model T, the Wills Sainte Claire was expensive to buy and complex to service. Its advanced materials, overhead-cam V-8 and intricate engineering made it a masterpiece, but not an easy car for the average owner or mechanic to maintain.
The market was not ready for Wills’ concept. Production costs remained high, sales never reached the hoped-for volume and the company closed in 1927 after producing roughly 12,000 automobiles.
See the Wills Sainte Claire at the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum
The 1922 Wills Sainte Claire A-68 Roadster is the newest addition to the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum collection. Rare, technically advanced and beautifully restored, it offers visitors a close look at one of the most ambitious American automobiles of the early 1920s.
Come see this remarkable roadster in person and discover why C. Harold Wills’ masterpiece still feels ahead of its time.