GTPlanet

It’s taken a surprisingly long amount of time for word on the latest GT Awards winner to get out, but IGN is first to break cover and confirm the winner: a 1970 Ford Mustang with a 427 SOHC “Cammer” engine. The car is a mean-yet-classy addition to Gran Turismo, carefully pieced together by Philip Koenen and Grand Touring Garage in Oregon for a “Hong Kong client” after a long search for the right body and engine. The powerplant is particularly special: considered one of the best Ford has ever built, it produces 616 hp at 7000 rpm and 515 lbs/ft of torque at 3800 rpm.

Other finalists included a Scion tC with a very, very interesting front-mounted wing, a Camaro SS stuffed with carbon fiber, and an upgraded, twin-turbo Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4, though none were able to capture Yamauchi’s attention like the ‘Stang. Watch for it next spring in Gran Turismo 5!

UPDATE (Nov. 7):  New pictures of the other finalists and awards ceremony added to the gallery below.

Yamauchi’s latest interview with AutoWeek magazine has quite a few surprises, with Yamauchi going so far as to confirm GT5’s development cost and a controversial new feature. Keep reading for a quick summary of everything you need to know…

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Since our own insider Amar212 first hinted that a track editor would be included in Gran Turismo 5, it’s something that many people, including myself, have approached with too-good-to-be-true trepidation. As we’ve learned more about the game, both Yamauchi and Polyphony Digital’s quickly-pulled web site posting have neglected to mention anything about what would be an incredible new feature. As a result, it’s dropped off the radar for most fans.

That’s all started to change over the weekend, however, as the Tokyo Game Show demo of Gran Turismo 5 was shown at DigiExpo in Finland. In a video interview with Finnish website Iltalehti, Sony Marketing Manager Suman Rath casually mentioned that “you can make your own tracks” (around 2:25). First picked up by GTPlanet user Timppaq yesterday, further discussion and analysis from other Finnish members have been able to confirm the true meaning of his words. Read their posts here, and please share your own impressions if you speak the language!

As with most off-hand, translated interview comments, we may not be getting completely accurate information, but it is still quite promising. Proceed with caution!

It’s time for the 7th annual Gran Turismo Awards at the SEMA show in Las Vegas! As you may recall, this unique event is a big deal for GT fans and car tuners alike, as Yamauchi picks his favorite car from the show to be featured in the next GT game. Award winners from previous years have brought us some of the series’ most memorable and cars, including the 1962 Buick Special (’03 winner) in Gran Turismo 4 and the 1960 Art Morrison Chevrolet Corvette (’06 winner) in GT5 Prologue.

This year will be a little different, though, as Sony has just announced that the 2007 and 2008 award winners (HPA Motorsport’s Audi TT and JR Rocha’s Infiniti G37) will be playable in a fresh new Gran Turismo 5 demo on the show floor. Kazunori Yamauchi himself will, of course, be on hand to personally select the 2009 winner, so we should also expect several new interviews popping up in the coming week.

On a considerably more somber note, it has just come to my attention (via Chronos in the forums), that JR Rocha, the personal owner of the 2008 award-winning Infiniti G37, passed away just last month from a heart attack. Presumably, SEMA 2009 would have been his first chance to play his own car in the game, making this turn of events all the more tragic. We’ve lost a great automotive enthusiast and car designer – may he rest in peace, and may his creation live on forever in GT5.

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Kazunori Yamauchi’s latest interview with ComputerBild.de may not drop any bombshells, but it definitely warrants a closer look. Google’s automated translation is a bit rough, so I’ve picked out the high points for you:

- When asked why GT5 is taking so long, Yamauchi reiterates the game is “difficult to develop”, and “the dimensions of the game are huge, it is simply too great. It is so complex, so vast in its scale”.

- There is pressure from Sony to deliver a high quality game, and the team at Polyphony Digital understand the implications of their work – it has potential to move many PlayStation 3 consoles for the company.

- Physics, sound, and online-features will be Gran Turismo 5’s greatest contributions to the evolution of the GT series.

- Once again, damage which has been seen so far is not indicative of the “final product”. He admits the game will not be able to portray more severe accidents, but they’re still working to make it as “realistic as possible”.

Yamauchi’s most interesting responses come when the interviewer inquires (and continues to press) on dynamic weather and time-of-day functionality…

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Mercedes-Benz is running a special blog, hosted by “Matthew”, covering the launch of the company’s new SLS AMG at various events around the world. Of course, he was on hand at the Tokyo Game Show, and shared the experience with the video above. While there’s little that we haven’t already seen, things get a little more interesting when Polyphony Digital employees show up to take a second look at the SLS on display.

Presumably, they’re looking to refine the model in the game, and seemed particularly curious about the functionality of the headlights. They also observe the opening of the fuel door cover – something which will need to be simulated thanks to the new, fully animated pit crews who attach a fueling rig to the car. As we slowly learn more and more about the game, it will be interesting to see how Yamauchi’s team choose to implement these small details.

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With so many of you making plans to attend the PlayStation House tour after we noticed that Gran Turismo 5 would be making an appearance, I felt this latest turn of events has warranted its own blog post. Unfortunately, in a statement to VG247, SCEE has announced that GT5’s listing on the site was a “mistake”. Sure enough, Sony has just updated the PlayStation House website, removing the racing title from the description (the old version lives on in Google’s cache, for now).

Anyone interested in cooking up a conspiracy theory should keep in mind that several of our readers, after talking with Sony employees running the “House” confirmed that GT5 would be arriving at the display “soon”. Was it an honest mistake, then, or was the game pulled after its appearance started getting publicity? It would be interesting to hear what those workers have to say about all of this, so be sure and ask them if you still decide to go (just be nice about it – remember, it’s not their fault).

Alas, it might not be all bad news: as pointed out by several readers in the comments to my previous post, Gran Turismo 5 is on schedule to be shown at DigiExpo in Helsinki, Finland on October 30 – but can we really believe you this time, Sony?