Back in the summer of 1970, the original American horsepower war was nearing its peak and the Detroit street racing scene was the center of it all. Streets like Woodward and Telegraph served as some of the most popular locations to flex your American muscle back then – just as they do today – and the most popular show cars today were the beasts of the streets in 1970. Folks who drove Mustangs, Camaros, Corvettes, Chevelles, Firebirds, GTOs and other performance vehicles from Ford and GM did their best to compete with the Mopar_® monsters, including the Dodge Charger, Challenger, Dart and Super Bee, as well as the Plymouth ’Cuda, Road Runner and many others.

Thanks to a lineup of powerful engines that included the 440-cubic inch big block and the 426 HEMI^®, Dodge and Plymouth muscle cars dominated the street racing scene in Detroit and across the country, making them tough to beat. Some of those classic Mopar muscle cars cars proved to be downright impossible to beat, one of which was a black 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T SE with the Gator skin vinyl roof treatment and a white tail stripe, powered by the 426 HEMI engine.

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Starting in the spring of 1970, this black HEMI engine-powered Challenger would show up at various racing spots around Metro Detroit – sometimes Woodward or Telegraph, sometimes one of the more out-of-the-way locations – and beat anyone who was willing to line up. After beating everyone who wanted to race, the menacing Dodge would disappear into the night for weeks or even months. No one in the racing scene knew who was driving this Dodge Challenger, so it was unclear why he would disappear for long periods of time, but everyone in the Detroit street scene knew that when that car showed up, there was a good chance that the quickest cars in attendance were going to take a loss.

Due to the way that this Dodge Challenger R/T would randomly show up then disappear for long periods of time, other local racers began calling the car “The Black Ghost”. The Black Ghost would continue this pattern of handing out losses around the Detroit street racing scene until the mid-1970s, when the car disappeared forever. No one knew what happened to the car or the incredible racer behind the wheel, but after 1975, the HEMI engine-powered Challenger known as The Black Ghost was never again seen in the Detroit racing scene.

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The Black Ghost Breaks Cover

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When Gregory Qualls was a little boy, he knew that his dad, Godfrey, had a very loud muscle car that he often took out late at night, but the father didn’t talk to the son about what he did with that car. In fact, Godfrey never talked to his son about his years of racing, so everything that Gregory knows of The Black Ghost’s history comes from family and friends of the family. There was a time when Godfrey took Gregory out for a ride in his Dodge Challenger R/T with a $100 bill taped to the dash and told his son that if he could grab the money during a pull, that he could have it. Of course, once the father launched the HEMI engine-powered muscle car, there was no chance of his son being able to sit forward to grab the money. As time went on, Gregory recalls the car being in the garage, covered in blankets and random other “junk”, and how from time to time, his bike would fall over against the car.

In 2014, Godfrey invited Gregory over to the house for a beer and while there, the father asked his son to come out to the garage with him. He uncovered the black Dodge Challenger R/T and the two spent the afternoon cleaning it up. That car was the legendary Black Ghost and Godfrey Qualls was the man who handed out so many street racing losses from the driver’s seat. Sadly, after beating prostate cancer back in 2008, the cancer had reappeared in his bones and by December of 2015, he was in the hospital, facing the end of his life.

On December 21, 2015, he asked his son to get an envelope from his home and bring it to the hospital. In that envelope was all of the paperwork for Godfrey’s 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T and he requested that it be brought to the hospital so that the car could be signed over into Gregory’s name. Godfrey Qualls passed away on Christmas Eve of 2015.

After his father’s passing, Gregory worked to get the Challenger back on the road, vowing to keep it in the family and, when the time is right, to pass the car down to his own son.

The Secrets of The Black Ghost

Godfrey Qualls was drafted into the United States Army in 1964, serving as a paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division until he returned to the U.S. with a Purple Heart in the mid-1960s after being injured by a hand grenade.

On December 5, 1969, Qualls took delivery of his 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T Special Edition, which was one of just 23 R/T SE models built with the 426 HEMI engine and the 4-speed manual transmission for that model year. The car also came equipped from the factory with the Super Track Pack which included a Dana 60 rear differential with 4.10 gears and Sure-Grip, a Hurst pistol grip shifter, houndstooth interior, hood pins, the white tail stripe and a black vinyl top. The car was mistakenly built with the gator skin pattern rather than the plain black vinyl, which Qualls didn’t love at the time, but it came to be one of the key recognizable traits of the legendary street racer.

In stock form, Qualls’ HEMI engine-powered Challenger would beat pretty much anything on the street, but as some added insurance, he made a few basic modifications. He removed the mufflers, allowing the 426 HEMI engine to breathe a bit easier, he installed an aftermarket ignition coil and replaced the standard rear street tires with a set of sticky drag slicks. He also added a small African flag decal to each front fender and an ignition key-kill system was added to the driver’s side front fender to keep the car secure around Detroit. With those few changes, Qualls’ Challenger hit the streets in the spring of 1970 and the legend of The Black Ghost began to take shape.

Meanwhile, also in 1970, Godfrey Qualls was hired by the Detroit Police to work as a motorcycle officer in the area of Traffic Enforcement. His passion for motorcycles led him to install a trailer hitch assembly on his Dodge Challenger R/T as well, which was a fairly rare upgrade for the top street brawlers of the era. His role on the police force likely played a role in the sporadic street racing appearance schedule of The Black Ghost Challenger. Had Qualls gotten caught street racing, he would have likely lost his job, so he would hit the streets, do some racing and then tuck the car away in the garage until police attention would die down. Being a police officer, Qualls would have been familiar with any targeted enforcement of the street racing scene, so he would know when it was safe for him to race and when it was best for him to stay away. This was also why he made sure that no one in the local scene knew who was driving that unbeatable Dodge Challenger in the early-to-mid 1970s.

Godfrey Qualls never got caught street racing and he retired from the Detroit Police Department in 2007 after 37 years of service.

Knowing who Godfrey Qualls was and what he did for a living answered the question of why The Black Ghost Dodge Challenger was such a mystery and why it would disappear for long periods of time, but what happened after 1975 that led to the car vanishing from the local street racing scene?

Well, in 1977, Qualls joined the Army National Guard, participating in Special Forces training and receiving his Green Beret in the late 1970s, serving with the National Guard through 2002. With Qualls rejoining the Army and still working as a Detroit police officer, he seemingly retired from dominating the local street racing scene and his legendary muscle car went into a long period of storage. According to Gregory Qualls, prior to him taking ownership, his father’s Challenger was last registered and insured for street use on March 19, 1976. The car then sat in his parents’ garage on jackstands from 1980 until 2016, at which point Gregory took the car out of storage to begin restoring it for show use.

Continuing the Legacy

When Gregory Qualls removed his father’s 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T SE from the garage, his plan was to get it back into proper running order while still preserving the overall look of the car as his father enjoyed it. The car is fully original in terms of appearance, with the original black paint, gator skin roof, African flags on the fenders and white stripe across the rear end. Gregory did remove the old school racing tires for a set of era-correct Polyglas GT tires, but in terms of appearance, the car looks exactly how it did when Godfrey Qualls was beating everyone on the street back in the 1970s.

To get this legendary muscle car back up and running in proper order, Gregory Qualls replaced the radiator, clutch fan, gas tank, spark plugs and plug wires, along with changing all of the fluids. The original brake booster, master cylinder, distributor, carburetors and the rest of the braking system were completely rebuilt, and to make for easier street cruising, the stock exhaust and stock ignition coil were installed.

Beyond that, everything on this 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T SE is original and in good working order, including the factory clutch. The fact that the clutch is original speaks to the quality of the clutch,  but it also shows that Godfrey Qualls knew how to launch a manually shifted drag car, racing for around five years with slicks without chewing up a stock clutch.

When Gregory took ownership of the Challenger, it had 45,544 miles on the odometer. Considering that the car was only registered by Godfrey from late 1969 through early 1976, with periods of the car being hidden from the public eye, he put an impressive amount of miles on the car when it wasn’t in hiding. Since Gregory got the car back on the street, he has put 550 miles on it, trailering the car to events and then driving it around the event area. This allows him to get the fluids moving a bit without adding loads of unnecessary miles, all while sharing his father’s legendary car with the automotive world.

Since emerging from decades of storage, the Qualls’ 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T SE has won a long list of awards, including the Spirit of Detroit Award at Concours d’Elegance of America in Plymouth, Michigan in 2021, The National Automotive Heritage Award at the Carlisle Chrysler Nationals in 2018 and the Muscle Car & Corvette Nationals Celebrity Pick Award in 2017. The most prominent recognition came in 2020 when this Challenger was added to the National Historic Vehicle Registry, securing its place in automotive history.

In addition to his father’s 1970 Challenger, Gregory Qualls has a black Challenger R/T Scat Pack, which wears the same African flag decals on the fenders and serves as his daily driver. Gregory Qualls plans to pass his father’s Challenger down to his son in the future, should his son be interested in owning the car and continuing to carry on the family legacy. Right now, his son is 15 years old and is  driving on a Level 1 learning permit, which allows him to drive with a parent in the vehicle, so once he turns 16, Gregory plans to let him drive The Black Ghost and “experience the magic of the Challenger”.

Gregory Qualls ended our discussion about his father and the legendary 1970 Challenger by pointing out that he is “in this Journey with my Dad and his car, I will tell his Legacy now and forever!”

All images provided by Gregory Qualls