In the summer of 1999, Ford had a problem—and it was a big one. The signs that something had gone wrong with the launch of the New Edge-generation Ford Mustang SVT Cobra were subtle at first, but began almost immediately after the top-tier pony car went on sale. It started with a trickle of owners complaining to dealers (and to each other), that they’d been walked in street races and at the drag strip, usually by rival vehicles that on paper, at least, shouldn’t have had a chance in a straight line contest. That trickle grew into a torrent when a couple of disgruntled Cobra customers took their cars to the dyno and discovered that the numbers being produced by their brand-new engines weren’t matching the 320 ponies Ford had advertised.

It’s not often I’m given the chance to speak with two automotive industry veterans who were in the thick of a crisis as it was happening. In this feature for Hagerty, I interviewed SVT’s Tom Scarpello and Mustang chief Arthur Hyde as they spoke together about Ford’s solution to the ’99 SVT Cobra debacle for the first time ever.