What would be the point of that as it would be a small step I guess to just make them full Premium with interior as well ( aka replace them with the base Premium car model )?
They're differently modelled so if they went to the trouble of applying the Premium level of exterior modelling to the "duplicate" Standard cars, if that's even technically possible, why wouldn't they just use the complete Premium model if the detail differences between these models are neglectable?
Because while the exterior might have small differences, the interior might change much, and at that level changing small external body features would be easier than modeling new seats, dashboards, trim, etc in an accurate way. It's also much easier to get reference material for the exterior than the interiors, which often require ad-hoc photo shoots. Try asking any car amateur 3d car modeler.
So, most "upgraded" standard cars might get premium bodies, but with blackened windows as no accurately modeled interiors would exist. Note that there already are some examples of this: the GT-R Proto in GTHD and the Lancer Evo X in the GT5P demo (they didn't have interiors modeled, but their exterior was).
Of course, I stress, this is all speculation of mine.
They either chose to have similar cars both available as Standard and Premium ( with whatever that actually implies for gameplay ) as does seem to be the case ( remember both versions of the classic Camaro? ) or only have one car as either Standard or Premium.
That Camaro might be old footage showing the "standard car" concept. After all, if most GTPSP cars are to appear in GT5, many of them (especially non-japanese cars)
will just have to show PS2-gen detail as the possibility that different versions of them won't be re-modeled as premium is high (example: Jay Leno Tank Car. There are no other versions available. If it doesn't get remodeled as Premium, then only the existing standard model can be used).
I don't think any Premium/Standard hybrid or combination is either logical or technically feasible.
I disagree. Not only it's technically very feasible, especially now that cars are made in a more traditional and correct way, promoting reusability and modularity (detachable panels, bumpers, hoods, features, wings, etc), but it's also very logical in my opinion.
Of course, as always, we'll see soon if this will be the case.
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I don't expect the standard cars to have as many customisation options as the premium ones (since we already know that only premium cars will have full damage), although I'd like to be proven wrong...
