Ford kicking up its heels

Mustang Cobra strikes

BY TOM VAN RIPER
DAILY NEWS WRITER

Hau Thai-Tang, director of Ford's Special Vehicle Team, (l.) and Carroll Shelby, designer of legendary car being revived from '70s.

The Shelby Cobra is back. A limited edition of Ford's classic Mustang — the brainchild of legendary car designer Carroll Shelby last seen in showrooms in 1970 — is heading back on the road next year.

About 7,500 of them will make it out of the factories, the company said, following an unveiling at the New York Auto Show at Javits Center that kicks off Friday.

And for a price tag of about $40,000, according to current estimates.

Dressed up with a big grille, vented hood, ducktail rear spoiler and classic dual racing stripes, the car will resemble the old Shelbys of the late 1960s, said project leader Hau Thai-Tang, director of Ford's Special Vehicle Team.

"We ended up with a design that is true to the Shelby name but that still makes sense economically," Thai-Tang said.

For the 82-year-old Carroll Shelby, who set speed records as a racer in the 1950s before tackling car design full-time, the return to Ford is sweet after a rift with then-president Bunky Knudsen led to a split with the company 35 year ago.

"These guys made it happen," Shelby said of the current Ford group. "I still love cars and I still have the fire in my belly." Ford hopes that raising the Cobra from the dead brings the next wave of rejuvenation to the Mustang, the company's signature muscle car that's selling at its best clip in years.

This year's GT and V6 models got a freshening up as part of a fifth-generation makeover, including a return to the familiar long-hood, short-back style that lured young baby boomers in the mid-1960s.

With those buyers now hitting their "empty nest" phase, many are trading in the family sedans for a return to their high horsepower youth. Mustang sales have accelerated at a pace well past last year's 144,000 cars. Ford just announced it's raising 2005 output to 192,000, nearly double last year's production run. So far, almost one of every two sports cars sold in the U.S. this year has been a Mustang.

Thai-Tang, who spent three years as Ford's chief Mustang engineer before taking over the Special Vehicle Team, got management to sink money into a separate design platform for the Mustang in 2005, rather than sharing parts with high-volume models as in some years past.

"Now the body and overall style makes the car instantly recognizable," he said.

Of course, getting its signature sports car back on track can only go so far in carrying on Ford's turnaround effort — that's mostly consisted of cost-cutting over the past two years. The company turned a $3.5 billion profit in 2004, just two years after suffering a loss.

Mustangs account for just 5% of the more than 3 million Fords being produced this year. By comparison, the company sells about 1 million F-Series pickup trucks a year, more than five times the number of Mustangs.

The Mustang "is a 'halo car,' one that can lure people into the showroom," said UBS auto analyst Robert Hinchliff. "But it won't add that much to the bottom line by itself."

MUSTANGS & THE METS

# The Ford Mustang debuted April 17, 1964 at the New York World's Fair in Flushing, just across the parking lot from where the Mets were playing their first home game at Shea Stadium.

# More than 22,000 people bought Mustangs that first day, nearly half the number who saw the Mets lose 4-3 to the Pittsburgh Pirates.

# Ford sold 263,424 Mustangs by year-end, or about one for every seven who took in a Mets game during Shea's inaugural season.

# Ford sold 418,810 Mustangs by the spring of 1965, a first-year record. The Mets lost 120 games in the 1962 season, a first-year (and all-time) record.

Love of autos began in Saigon

As the powerful director of Ford's Special Vehicle Team, Hau Thai-Tang was the driving force behind the company's move to rejuvenate the Shelby Cobra this year.

He's just been elevated to his current spot after three years as Ford's chief Mustang engineer.

But the 38-year-old engineer had much more modest goals as a child in war-torn Vietnam.

"My only aspiration was to own a car one day," Thai-Tang told the Daily News.

Spurring that goal was a glimpse he caught of a white Mach I Mustang as a 5-year-old in 1971, when the car was transported to Saigon as part of morale campaign for U.S. troops.

"I thought it embodied all the positive images of America," he said.

Four year later, days before the fall of Saigon, Thai-Tang and his three immediate family members were among the lucky few to escape to the U.S.

Chase Manhattan Bank, which employed his mother in Saigon, arranged relocations for some families — generally those with few members, who were educated and spoke some English.

The signal to fleeing families that it was safe to move?

The airing of Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" on a local radio station in April 1975.

Upon hearing it, Thai-Tang remembered, they all grabbed their one bag and headed for the American embassy. Once safely ashore in America, they settled in Park Slope, Brooklyn, put up by a Chase Manhattan sponsor family.

Thai-Tang's mother went to work for Chase at New York Plaza in lower Manhattan. Later, the family moved to a house on Staten Island where Thai-Tang grew up.

While his mother continued to work for Chase, he went on to earn an engineering degree at Carnegie Mellon and an master's from the University of Michigan. And his love of cars compelled him to turn down a job with NASA in favor of Ford.

"I couldn't ever take my wife on a space shuttle flight," he explained. "But I can take her for a ride in a Mustang any time."

Tom Van Riper

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