Ponies as promised; Ford SVT rolls out two familiar faces and one hot new hatch-all with power to make us forget about 1999.

In the wake of the highly publicized, er, ``issue'' over the 1999 Ford SVT Mustang Cobra and its failure to deliver an advertised 320 horses, the folks at Ford's Special Vehicle Team have rebounded with fare aplenty for those in search of performance and cachet.

The 2001 model year ushers in two familiar nameplates from SVT-the Cobra (the mega-Mustang missed model-year 2000 so the company could ``fix'' under-performing 1999 models) and an even more electrifying SVT F-150 Lightning.

And if that's not enough, SVT will take the wraps off its newest toy, the SVT Focus, this week at the Chicago Auto Show.

The Cobra gets new seats, a six-disc in-dash CD player and a rear bumper that now reads ``Cobra'' instead of ``Mustang.'' The seats feature increased side bolstering

and suede-like inserts with the car's signature snake stitched onto the seatback.

Power comes from Ford's 4.6-liter dohc V8, the engine that came under heavy scrutiny when word got out that some owners of '99 Cobras couldn't seem to find all the Mus-tang's ponies. Special Vehicle Engin-eering has since rectified the problem (95 percent of '99 Cobras received the fixes; the last 5 percent ``are wrecked or in South America somewhere,'' says SVT). SVT is committed to ensuring all 2001 Cobras pump out a full 320 hp and 317 lb-ft of torque.

``With this car we have to get it right,'' says John Coletti, SVE chief engineer. ``We can't have another issue like we had in 1999.''