I had no idea the black Ghost needed this much work. WOW
 

No kidding. The floors and valvetrain, especially...wow.

Yeow.

I have often lamented how Dad's GTO was stored, but I feel better about it now.

K

Kudos to the owner for showing the good, bad and ugly. The floor repair is isolated to the one area shown and to a craftsman it very simple and undetectable when complete.

This car was setting for years and speaking with Frank Badalson he is confident it will stand tall once refreshed. Frank is perfect guy to correct all issues and look forward to the progress.

Yes, Frank will absolutely do it right, but I had no idea that the storage had done that much damage to it. Detroit salt and a wet concrete floor will dissolve anything. That valvetrain looks like it came off the Titanic!

I hope they check the rest of the floor thoroughly for pin holes and weak areas, as it looks like the right side will need work too.
The rust on the valve train isn't that uncommon from long term storage, but man, they could have done a better job of cleaning it before running the engine.

Mitch, Frank Badalson is refreshing the car. You know firsthand how knowlegeable and thorough he is as our Mopar team leader in Vintage Certification. No worries it will be done right.

Makes me even mor thankful that the OO of my 70 Hemi Challenger stored it properly for 40 years. Not one speck of rust.

There's Bergy again mentioning another car I didn't know he had.
He's got quite the stable of nice cars.
Koodos Bergy!

Back to regular White Ghost updates......

It is in the proper hands in order to fix and correct what is needed, yeah buddy!

----1 of the 300 commerative Challengers is at Mecum Indy. Depending on what it brings there may be many more come up at other auctions!....Bill S

"Investment grade"...:biggthumpup:

awesome survivor and story of a good cop that did bad things :)

The Ghost drag race night rider story is just that, a story. Literally no one from the street race scene back then has even seen/heard about this car. It was a urban legend dreamed up by the son to run the price up on a stock Hemi car that he wanted to sell. Bravo

I would think the "Silver Bullet" would have ran circles around this "Ghost" But what do I know, I'm a Chevy guy. Bill

I agree - IMO there’s no way a stock hemi challenger is going to win street races against all comers back in the day. Challengers are pretty heavy. The OO of mine said that even with slicks he struggled with traction off the line. Ran mostly very low 13s but high 120s mph through the traps.

I agree. My Teater Automotive out of Elgin Illinois built 1969 Rat Roaster intake, Nascar 12 quart oil pan, 727 automatic, heavily modified Hemi Road Runner ran 11:57 @ 121 Mph on slicks consistently back in 1974 at Union Grove Dragaway. I think I read Jimmie Addison's
Silver Bullet ran in the mid 10's back in the day (late 1960's - the early 1970's). Bill

That the car was a little modded and occasionally ran people on street is highly plausible, and the fact that it's a matching numbers hemi Challenger makes the story even more interesting.

I didn't grow up in that era and not in Detroit either so we just go by the stories and some of the eye witness accounts.

That doesn't mean the car was a fierce street beater the likes of some cars. Stories get embellished over time.

You take the Chicago scene as an example, and it was not just one scene, it was many. I have older buddies who were out every night and they never met or raced similar guys who lived 25 miles away. The way my buddy Al says it, all his buddies were on racing gas and had 4.88 gears so you drove around going 30 mph on the North side and you would never even think to drive down to Cicero/Berwyn to race other people it was just too far. This was the late 70s and early 80s.

Frank Badalson and his crew will preserve what can be and repair and replace everything else. The owner wants full disclosure and admire him for that. Most restorations you don't see the details. Nice to see some progress...

Looks like the drivers floorboard had a tendency to rust out in these black Hemi Challengers....here's a picture of the one I used to own back in the early 1980s.