RIP Dodge Challenger V8: Goodbye To America’s Maddest Muscle Car

Well, I guess they say it's better to burn out than fade away. Last December, when I heard that Dodge was about to stop making the meanest-looking

muscle

car of the 21st century, I immediately wanted to come to the United States and drive one. Partly because I've never had the opportunity to do so, but mostly because I'm fascinated to discover how, in our more socially conscious, environmentally aware, and politically correct times, well, how did this not only stay on sale for so long? time? For a long time, but it keeps getting more and more scandalous? This generation of Challenger has been with us since 2008.

The concept, designed by Michael Castiglione, now at Rivian, took Mercedes, which then owned Dodge, taking a nap. The Germans had no intention of letting Dodge get bogged down in building their V8 homages, and up until that point, they seemed much happier to let Ford print buckets of cash with the reborn Mustang while Dodge didn't have a

muscle

retro car But, lucky for us, Dodge designers decided to ignore the suits in the boardroom, take the platform under the Chrysler 300C, which was basically a mix of old Mercedes E-Class and S-Class leftovers, and combine it with their El latest 5.7 liter Hemi V8.

But what about the looks? When Dodge first showed off the concept in 2006, it was obvious they had a big hit on their hands. So they set out to modify it for production, which ramped up less than two years later in Brampton, Ontario. Yes. Your quintessentially American muscle car is actually as Canadian as Ryan Reynolds fighting Justin Bieber in a paddling pool filled with maple syrup. (Engine revolutions) I think I have altered it. The 425 HP Challenger SRT8 was just the beginning. There's been a V6, all-wheel drive, more special editions than Lamborghini and Pagani combined, and a few members of the modern muscle car hall of fame.

And, in fact, we've had adventures with all of them in the pages of Top Gear magazine. There was the Hellcat in 2014, with 707 HP. Then the 808hp Demon in 2017, with its optional passenger seat and wheelie ability. Then there is the Redeye, the Widebody, the Super Stock and the 1,025 HP Demon 170, capable of going from 0 to 100 in 1.66 seconds. Every time we think, "Oh, we've seen the ultimate Challenger," Dodge has packed on more power, more attitude, and pushed the bar of bone-crunching mayhem toward low-Earth orbit. With so many evolutions and additions over the years, I asked Dodge, "How many of these things have you done since 2008?" I mean, even last year (car is old, interest rates are going up, gas prices are high, there's a new Mustang on the scene) they were still trading around 50k.

But in total since 2008? Dodge has built 857,000 Challengers. And they don't even sell it worldwide. I mean, isn't that crazy? It's based on a platform that was gifted to them, it started with some sort of off the shelf engines, the interior must have cost around $1.25. I mean, imagine the profits this has generated over the years. But so what if the accountants are happy? This Challenger generation will not be remembered for its economic policy. No. I think the reason this will remain immortal in the minds of the muscle car faithful is because it brought Dodge back to a party it had left behind and ushered in a whole new generation of sorts into the golden era of the muscle car. .

And whether you grew up in America with that street hero heritage or not, that kind of nostalgia is incredibly powerful. Especially for this one. Some of you may already know that this is no ordinary Challenger. So, for everyone else's benefit, I hope you like ghost stories. Well, then imagine the scene. It's just before the summer of '69 in Detroit, Michigan. Motown's glory days are probably behind us, but a Purple Heart veteran now working as a city police officer decides he'll treat himself to his perfect muscle car. His name was Godfrey Qualls and he had impeccable taste.

Choose a 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T with black paint, black roof and black interior. Killed before it cooled down. It's highlighted with a white stripe around the tail and SE trim, with Challenger badging and luxurious wood trim inside. Under the hood, he upgraded to the 426 cubic-inch 7-liter Hemi V8 that officially made around 420 hp, but actually made more like 475. He opted for the pistol-grip manual shifter, the shorter final drive for Better acceleration and the details were pure Mopar dream equipment. Hood pins, stiffer suspension, bucket seats and a lockable gas cap, which the modern one doesn't have. Unfortunately, Dodge managed to screw up his order.

They put on the wrong hood (well, hood then) with the twin nostrils instead of the shaker-style hood and applied a deeply '70s-style alligator skin top. All of those details, minus a manual gearbox, reappear in this limited edition of 300 final Challengers, which cost just over $100,000 each. And since skinning alligators isn't very 2024, don't worry: the top part of the alligator is just a sticker. But why even pay homage to some random guy's Challenger? Well, you see, although during the day Godfrey was a cop, at night he took his Challenger perfectly equipped for street racing. The story is simply irresistible.

That night, on Woodward Avenue in Detroit, this black Dodge, piloted by a mystery driver, would show up at a red light, challenge someone to a race, and then launch him into the middle of last week. And then, as soon as it appeared, the car and its unknown driver would disappear like a ghost into the night for weeks, sometimes months, at a time. And this started a feverish rumor about who he was and what they had under the hood. In 1976, Qualls decided that he had had enough of street racing. His infamous car was parked in his garage, and his sudden disappearance only poured gasoline on the story of what was by then known as the Black Ghost.

He continued raising his children and serving in the military. And his car remained covered in trash until after his death on Christmas Eve 2016. After his death, his son, Gregory, inherited the spec-spec Challenger that was in the garage. Only when he set about restoring it, ordering parts for a black 1970 Challenger with an alligator-skin top from local repair shops, did he discover that his father had been one of the most infamous street racers in American history. Joined. And if that story seems far-fetched to me, well, imagine how I felt when, a few weeks after driving the new Black Ghost in California, I found myself in Detroit.

Greg Qualls still lives locally and invited me to his house. To the same garage where the original Black Ghost came back to life. Look, I never knew anything about my father's racing. To me, it was just a car in a garage. It was just my dad's car in a garage. When I was little, I had my bike, like the scooter there, and I'd ride it and then I'd take it to the garage and, you know, I'd put it in the middle because the way the car was set up upstairs, it was on the edge of the garage. .

So sometimes the bike would tip over and, oops, you know. - Dent the car. - Hit the car. So all those bumps and stuff were from my bike. That's part of your story now. Didn't they put that on the new one? Didn't they put dents in the side? - No no! I can live without the dents. If I had known then what I know now, it would be totally different. But you know, that's life, right? And then I had to put two and two together because when I was restoring the car, we noticed it was like, why is there all this extra stuff on the car, you know?

In reality, they were high-performance parts. I needed to get the car going. So the car wasn't original, so I had to put it back into stock so I could get it running and then drive it, right? Because I wanted to drive it. I wanted to understand why my dad liked that car so much. You know, why did he keep it all this time? It's just an old car. Normally, you just get rid of them. He sold all the other cars he had. You know, why he didn't sell this one and why he kept it in a garage, covered in boxes and stuff everywhere.

And… And when I walked that path on that trip, I understood why. I really did it. I really did it. And it was a wonderful journey to understand that part of my father that I had never known. As you can see, Greg now owns one of the 300 Black Ghosts tribute, with a cool vanity plate. He no longer possesses his father's original. I then asked him why he decided to sell the car and if he regretted anything. So when we finally decide as a family, okay, what do we have to do with the car? For the car, for the insurance.

You know, I had a million dollar insurance coverage on the car because that was what the car was valued at. And I had appraisers examine the car for its originality. And that's why it was simply expensive. That alone was expensive. But then you have the factors of I want to keep this as original as possible. How is it preserved? At some point I need to do a restoration or preservation of the car, but I just didn't have that kind of money. When I was looking into it, the starting fees were $100,000, $150,000, just to get started. And it can go up to, you know, $300,000.

Because we're preserving the car, we're not just redoing it. So there are many more things that come into play. And I didn't realize that because I was thinking, you know, it's just a car. Do you know how difficult it is to keep it at that level? But to really preserve the car, it's very detail-oriented, as I found out, through all the research I did and all the important people I talked to and... And then we came to a conclusion. Did you know? What would my dad do, you know? And you know, he sold everything he had.

And then I think when you look at things, he would want the family to do better. And, for him, he was always helping the family. He did everything he could to help the family. So I really thought about that and thought, you know what? This could really improve the Qualls family. And then we made that decision. It was a difficult decision because I really wanted to keep the car, deep in my heart. But then reality hit, you know, I have to figure out, you know, is this car going to rust? You know, am I going to have engine problems?

One day, maybe I turn the key and if I damage the engine, then I'll never forgive myself because then I totaled my dad's car, you know? And then do that and rebuild it, then it won't be original anymore. The Black Ghost made over a million dollars at auction in May 2023 and found a new home with a collector who is currently arranging to meticulously restore the car while maintaining the originality of the pieces that are so precious to the Qualls family. Although it was obviously emotionally gut-wrenching to let the car go, Greg says the new owner isn't the type of person to hide cars from him.

So when it's finished, he'll tour car shows once again, so future generations can see the machine behind the legend of the Black Ghost. The modern Black Ghost is based on a Hellcat Redeye, so it has wide body arches and an eight-speed automatic gearbox as standard, which somehow has to make sense in a 6.2-liter supercharged V8, with 15.3 pounds of boost and development. 807 horsepower with 770 pound-feet of torque. All of this ends up in the rear tires and sometimes some of it ends up on the road. Dodge claims this two-ton coupe will go from 0 to 60 in 3.7 seconds and hit 203 mph.

But you'll be monitoring the tires every step of the way. I mean, the old European cliché is: "Ugh, muscle cars. They're only good for going in a straight line." But this... sometimes I can't even do that! Driving the Black Ghost is a constant negotiation between the accelerator and the devil. The suspension slams into you, the steering kicks back, those huge 305-section front tires roll away happily, and the brakes are grippy at first, right at the top of the pedal, then softer than the bottom of a too-rare hamburger when you step on it. . really squeeze them. The evolution of Challenger engines has greatly surpassed what could be done with their old chassis, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

This is exactly what I expected the experience of driving a Challenger to be after all these years: raw, intimidating, brutal, but completely honest about the origin of the muscle car. I love its simple, noise-free simplicity. The cliché thing to do now would be to just trot out some nonsense about how, ah, the Black Ghost Challenger, is always trying to kill you. But you know what? After driving it for a few days, I don't think that's true. I just think you have to adapt and change your driving style. So I got into this and I was obviously intimidated, and I drove it likeIt was a high-performance European car, with delicate and precise movements and very quick reactions.

It actually becomes much better, much more reliable, if you remember that it is brute and responds to a little brute force. So be more positive with your contributions, more direct. And, dare I say it, turn down (or even turn off) the traction control. I mean, not if it's wet. Don't go near it if it's wet. But if it's a little dry, you better not sit here cowering in fear, trying to hide from the power. Just respect the car and don't sit there waiting for it to rip your head off. The Black Ghost is so dumb. A fitting encore for this generation of the Challenger and its Hellcat engine, all with a gargling bass line and moaning supercharger fury.

I loved spending time getting to know him. In his final moments, big, bad Dodge has become a lifelong friend. So we'll end up at Alice's Restaurant, just off Skyline Boulevard, off Highway 9, in the hills above San Francisco. Come for the breakfast burritos, stay for the trails. Which, like the views around here, are simply magnificent. I mean, the amount of curves, the surface changes, the curvatures... It's just kind of driving utopia, as everyone here has seen. But with water rushing off the hills and dappled sunlight dazzling you, it may not be Challenger country. But the sun and the weekend have attracted hundreds of enthusiasts, and everyone from wealthy Porsche collectors to tuned M car aficionados, Lotus lovers and Honda VTEC fanatics have all shown great respect. for the Dodge and its history, and more than a few wore some pained expressions, wondering how exactly Dodge can replace one of the automotive world's most extroverted caricatures with this electric successor.

I guess an introspective question for another day. For now, I hope you'll join me in wishing the best worst car in the world a very happy retirement.