In 1984, Huffaker Engineering in California was building tube-chassis Fiero GT race cars for IMSA racing. Bob Ackerman, Manager of Product Design, at Chrysler spotted the chassis in a racing mag, and hit upon the idea of building the mid-engine PPG car on that chassis, using a body and engine designed in-house.
The Mopar boys called Huffaker and had them build a chassis, but with a longer wheelbase than the Fiero (100 inches, versus the 94 for the 'stock' car). This PPG car would be pacing CART races, and high-speed stability was more important than quick handling. The engine, too, was a mash-up, using a Chrysler 4-banger casting with extra metal in which to drill bolt holes, to which was mounted with a Cosworth DOHC top end. It was fed by Bosch fuel injection and two turbos. The intercooler is mounted in that long tail.
After lots of tweaking and fussing, and fitted with a big rear wing and smaller rear tires, the car eventually did 195 MPH, and then blew its head gasket.
The "Wraith" seen in the movie was mostly a series of copies, with body molds taken off the PPG car. The actual PPG car only appeared briefly in the movie. A lot of time and expense went into building it, and Mopar didn't want to wreck it doing stunts.
Links being Taboo here, I will suggest that a video of the PPG car's 195 MPH run can be found in a well-know video site.
