Importing Ingenuity

During trips in the countryside, Thai-Tang and his younger brother saw bodies of Viet Cong guerrillas strung up by the roadside. An uncle and aunt both died in the war.

When Thai-Tang was around age 5, his father and grandfather took him for a treat: The U.S. military was staging an exhibition near the airport, displaying tanks and planes and other military hardware. But what really stood out was a group of souped-up Mustangs, brought over by U.S. drag-racing legend Al Eckstrand to boost troop morale and promote safe driving for soldiers headed back home.

Accustomed to Vespa scooters, Volkswagen Bugs and the family's crank-started Citroen, Thai-Tang hardly knew what to think of the powerful Mustangs. They were "just totally out of this world," he said. "As a kid, you envisioned this big country, wide open spaces. The people are big, and here's this car that's big and muscular -- you envision it driving out West somewhere. The freedom, and escape."

He held that vision for four more years. In 1975, as South Vietnam was about to be overrun by the communist north, Chase Manhattan Bank selected Thai-Tang's family for relocation to America. They had to listen for a signal -- Armed Forces Radio would play Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" -- and leave small carry-on bags packed by the front door.

The song aired one day in April. The family rushed to a rendezvous point, pausing only to leave keys with Thai-Tang's grandfather, then caught one of the last planes out before Saigon fell.

Resettled in Brooklyn, 9-year-old Hau plunged directly into public schools, despite knowing almost no English. He was a whiz at math, though, and gravitated toward engineering. After college, Thai-Tang interned at Procter & Gamble, where he quickly tired of an assignment designing twist tops for orange juice containers.

So he went to an interview at Ford, where someone met him at the airport in a company car: a Mustang. "I thought, 'How cool is that?' " Thai-Tang said.

Too cool for a newcomer, as it turned out. Mustangs were the prestige program within the company, and after Thai-Tang hired on it was years before he got anywhere near them. But he did wind up working on rear-wheel-drive vehicles, a shrinking part of the business in an era when most Americans came to prefer front-wheel drive. Mustangs were the last major rear-wheel-drive car at Ford, and when the company decided to redesign the car a few years ago, Thai-Tang was coming off successful work on the Lincoln LS. He was in a perfect position to take on the Mustang job.

When he was named chief engineer, a top executive called and congratulated him for winning a "stand and deliver" opportunity. "The implied message is, you're accountable. High risk, high reward," Thai-Tang said. He didn't need reminding. "There's the additional burden of 8 million customers who bought the car over the last 41 years. You realize they're looking to you to not screw it up."

Hau Thai-Tang does not come across as a Steve McQueen type of guy. His carefully composed demeanor -- wire-rimmed glasses, trim business suit -- conceals a dry, self-deprecating wit ("an Asian guy who's good in math: imagine that," he quips). He's more likely to attend his young daughter's ballet recital in the evening than to race around Detroit in some new prototype. His iPod doesn't get any wilder than classic rock, Black Eyed Peas, Gregorian chants and -- of course -- several versions of "White Christmas."

But it was McQueen, the 1970s movie tough guy, whom Thai-Tang looked to for inspiration in pulling together the Mustang. He put up a poster of the actor in the work area where, at peak, some 200 team members collaborated to create the car. Steve McQueen's scowl, he said, set the look for the car's front end, the headlights set back under the rim of the hood to suggest the same air of menace.

Workers used the Steve McQueen movie "Bullitt," which featured a Mustang in wild car chases, to get the engine sound for the new car, tuning its exhaust pipes like a musical instrument, seeking the right rumble and roar.

Engineers and designers hung out with enthusiasts at Mustang clubs and rallies. They watched how Mustang owners lived with their cars, and had customers clip pictures from magazines to illustrate their feelings about the brand.

By the time the redesigned car rolled into showrooms last fall, with its mix of retro-flavored looks and updated technology, it had enough preorders on the books to debut as a hit. Critics had a few complaints -- the car has a solid rear axle instead of independent suspension; stability control is not available -- but by almost any measure the new Mustang was a home run, and one of the few highlights for Ford at a time of financial peril.

Thai-Tang has since been promoted to oversee development of all of Ford's advanced and performance vehicles. But he continues to travel around the globe touting the car, such as at the Alexandria marina in April when members of several Mustang clubs showed up to hear him speak (and wowed that Civic driver with their cars). At a Mustang show in Europe, enthusiasts from several countries arrived wearing cowboy boots. At rallies in the United States, Thai-Tang inevitably runs into Vietnam War veterans who are eager to meet him.

"In some ways it brings a little closure for them to realize, Hey, it wasn't a lost cause," he said. "They made a difference in people's lives. People resettled in America and were able to contribute to this new country."

Thai-Tang made sure he got that message to Eckstrand, the former drag racer who organized the Mustang show in Vietnam. Now living in Florida, Eckstrand has been amazed to see Thai-Tang credit him in television and newspaper interviews. The two men spoke by phone, and Thai-Tang sent Eckstrand a book about Ford products inscribed to the man who inspired the 2005 Mustang.

"I was so proud," Eckstrand said, his voice breaking with emotion. After three years of touring those cars around Southeast Asia in the 1970s, he said, he has always been haunted by the thought of all the children who came out to see them. Now he knows that at least one not only made it out, but accomplished something remarkable.