Childe Harold Wills, the skilled metallurgist behind the Model T Ford, left Ford in 1919 and established his own factory in Marysville, Michigan. From 1921 to 1927, he produced the Wills Sainte Claire, a car celebrated for its impeccable workmanship and elegant engineering. His original A-68 model featured an advanced overhead-cam V-8 engine, modeled after WWI-era Hispano-Suiza aero engines. Despite its technological excellence, Wills’ perfectionism and the car’s high cost limited its sales, leading to its replacement by a more conventional inline-six model.

This A-68 joined Bill Pettit’s Museum of Motoring Memories in Natural Bridge, Virginia during the 1950s, was rebuilt in 1957, and driven in the prestigious Glidden Tour. An admirer of this idiosyncratic marque, Stan Lucas acquired the Wills from the Pettit collection at the Christie’s Tarrytown auction in 1998 and has treasured it since. Aside from a repaint and new canvas top, it remains largely original.