Car Culture

The 11th annual GT Awards were held in Las Vegas last night, where a car on display at SEMA was chosen to be included in a future Gran Turismo game.

The 2013 Gran Turismo Awards are at SEMA in Las Vegas this week, and the finalists have just been revealed.

Chevrolet has featured Gran Turismo creator Kazunori Yamauchi in their marketing efforts for the new 2014 Corvette Stingray, which includes an interactive film and website with keyboard-and-mouse challenges.

Each year at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas, the Gran Turismo Awards are held to honor some of the best custom vehicles on display – one of which gets immortalized in a Gran Turismo game.

Kazunori Yamauchi will be the star guest of the premier discussion panel at the Gran Turismo-sponsored Jalopnik Film Festival this Wednesday, September 18.

Reuters recently published an interesting article which offers an interesting look at the fascinating but rarely-discussed business of racing games, which are becoming increasingly important as auto makers look to reach out to consumers.

Kazunori Yamauchi has selected a 1953 Aston Martin DB3S as the winner of Polyphony Digital’s Gran Turismo Trophy at this year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.

The 2012 Gran Turismo Awards were held last night in Las Vegas, where Kazunori Yamauchi himself selected the David Eckert’s Ford Mach Forty as “Best in Show” from among the five category finalists.

Kazunori Yamauchi toured the show floor at SEMA in Las Vegas today, visiting all of the individual category winners in this year’s Gran Turismo Awards. They are:

Hip-hop star Snoop Dogg (or “Snoop Lion”, as he now prefers to be called) will be headlining at the 2012 Gran Turismo Awards, to be held at the Palm Resort’s Rain Nightclub in Las Vegas, this Thursday, November 1st at 9:30pm.

The Gran Turismo Awards have become a popular staple of SEMA 2012, the massive modified car show that takes place in Las Vegas each fall.

AUTOart, the scale model company known for its detailed replicas, will be producing a 1:18 scale version of Gran Turismo 5’s Red Bull X2010, as announced by Polyphony Digital.

Each year at the prestigious Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, Kazunori Yamauchi personally selects a car at the show to be awarded the “Gran Turismo Trophy” and included in a future Gran Turismo title.

Earlier this year, the Mazda 787B was released as the first car in Autoart’s Gran Turismo 5 “stealth model” series. Today, two more stealth models are available to purchase: the Nissan GT-R GT500 and McLaren F1.

Polyphony Digital’s custom “stealth” race cars in Gran Turismo 5 are some of the most difficult to acquire in the game. Available as pre-order and Signature Edition incentives, they’re simply not available to the majority of players.

The 2011 Gran Turismo Awards were held last Thursday night in Las Vegas, and Kazunori Yamauchi himself selected this year’s “Best in Show” winner: a 1971 Chevrolet Camaro, customized and tuned by Mary Pozzi of Salinas, California.

Each year at SEMA in Las Vegas, Sony hosts the “Gran Turismo Awards” – a competition with one very important judge (Kazunori Yamauchi), who selects a car on display at the show for inclusion in a GT game.

Since the Red Bull X2010’s existence was announced nearly one year ago, there’s been surprisingly little promotion of the vehicle in the form of real-world merchandise. A scale-modeler in the UK has decided to change that by taking matters into his own hands, building a 1/43 diorama of the car and putting it up for sale on eBay. Needless to say, it would be the perfect addition to any Gran Turismo collection.

At the 2011 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance yesterday, Kazunori Yamauchi awarded this year’s Gran Turismo Trophy to a head-turning 1960 Plymouth XNR Ghia Roadster concept car. Created by influential car designer Virgil Exner (hence the concept’s name), it was intended to preview the direction of Chrysler’s designs in the 1960’s. It had enough muscle to back up its dramatic, asymmetrical look, producing 250 horsepower from a Valiant 225 Slant Six (more details on the car are available here).