The Last Roundup; We corral special editions of the Chevy and Ford pony cars just once more, before they ride into the sunset.(News)

Okay, so it wasn't your classic shootout. We tried-oh, how we tried-to put a Callaway C8 Camaro and a Roush Mustang on the same road course on the same day, but as happens often in the performance aftermarket world, things just wouldn't come together quite right. Still, we drove a lot of miles behind the wheels of these machines, and we present them together as representatives of an era on the cusp of change.

Everyone knows Chevrolet stopped building Camaros in late summer (ditto Pontiac and Firebird), and there is no known successor on the boards. We stress the word ``known,'' given GM's public striving to revive its own love of performance, but it seems safe to say that Camaro as we've known it since 1967 is done. Meanwhile, over in Dearborn, a replacement for the amazingly long-lived Fox-platform Mustang finally looms on the horizon with an all-new car touted for the 2005 model year. If you think Ford, steeped in its own 2003 centennial and heritage, isn't aware of the Mustang's 40th anniversary coming up in April 2004, think again.

Before we go there, though, let's have one last look around at the state of the pony car today: specifically, these two special editions devised to celebrate the most appealing attributes ...