Mrs Riley and Mr Wills

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As in so many industries, the anchors of the automobile industry, gave birth to numerous employees who thought they could do better and started on their own. In many cases, they couldn’t and left behind, apart from a trail of debts, perhaps just a few prototypes. They make interesting reading though. How about Childe Harold Wills? Wills was an early Henry Ford employee who contributed heavily to the design of the Model T and even was the man behind the famous calligraphy in Ford’s blue oval badge.

But after some eighteen years of what must have been a very fruitful cooperation, Wills and Ford were not very friendly anymore. And when Ford began buying out shareholders, Wills saw an opportunity and demanded ‘an accounting of the profit-sharing he had accrued’. And he was successful. Wills was paid out a whopping 1.5 million dollars. And that was not even all. Being a clever investor, Wills had bought shares in steel firms as well, which brought in another 4 million dollars.

So what does a clever motor builder, technician and inventor do when he’s all of a sudden back on the streets with millions of dollars? Of course he starts building another car. That’s how Wills Sainte Claire came about. The Wills Sainte Claire Gray Goose was his first model, which debuted in 1921. At least it sounded anything unlike the Model T. and it was. It supposedly used an overhead cam V8 engine and cost a sensational 3,000 dollars. Sales were poor though, and Wills lost money every year before closing his dream factory in 1927. Eventually, Chrysler bought the plant and Wills died in 1940 at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

This photograph was taken over 500 miles south-east in Washington at the Wardman Park Hotel on January 1st, 1922. The car has to be a Gray Goose but we do not know if it came with the Wills-designed V8, as the only further information that we have is that the lady seen with it is named Mrs Phil Riley. Oh - there is another photograph from the same shooting, attached below.

Words by Jeroen Booij.

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