Over Christmas, I’ve received a lot of questions about the free “Christmas gift cars” which were announced by Sony Japan a few weeks ago. As it turns out, the three free cars, which consisted of a Lamborghini Murcielago LP 640,  Jaguar XJ13, and a BMW M3 Coupe, were only made available in the Japanese PSN Store. Even if you have a Japanese PSN account, the cars can only be used with an actual Japanese copy of the game.

The GTPlanet Forums are home to some incredible real-world photographic talent. Last year, we tapped in to that talent by putting together a calendar filled with some of the best automotive shots our members have taken throughout the year. Today, I’m proud to unveil GTPlanet’s official 2011 Calendar, available now for $25. I am even more proud to announce that all proceeds will be donated to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, funding private research, patient support, and raising awareness of this horrible disease.

With the launch of Gran Turismo 5, the steering wheel market is really heating up. Now, however, the bar has apparently been raised with the new Fanatec Porsche 911 GT2. The wheel is receiving high marks from users in our steering wheels forum, and there’s even more kind words from the hosts at InsideSimRacing, who called it part of the “best package” to play the game. Keep an eye on the wheel segment of InsideSimRacing’s Gran Turismo 5 review in the video above (you’ll find the wheel discussion begins at 24:45) for more, or watch Darin’s mini-feature on the GT2 here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8D5BcFJPiI

The latest update to Gran Turismo 5, version 1.05, was made available just a few hours ago and weighs in at 608MB. Here’s a quick, official summary of all the new changes, but users are discovering a few more new tweaks in our forums as well:

As you’ve probably discovered by now, Gran Turismo 5’s Photomode feature can be surprisingly fun and addictive. You’ve probably also noticed, however, that you can’t easily take a pictures of a car’s interior – until now. GTPlanet user IeGI has discovered an easy way of getting the camera “inside” a premium car, and he’s shared a detailed set of instructions here in our forums so you can do the same.

Congratulations to GTPlanet’s own Alex Ingram (known as pippin4652 in our forums and GTP_Ingram on PSN), who took first place in the national Gran Turismo 5 BRAVIA 3D Tournament! The UK-based competition, hosted by electronics retailer HMV, came to a close yesterday at their flagship Oxford Circus store. As previously announced, BBC F1 presenter Jake Humphrey was on-hand to host the finals, which consisted of the 10 fastest players from around the country (see more pictures and details at HMV Gamerbase).

First picked up by our own Amar212, SCEJ (Sony Japan) has announced that three free cars for Gran Turismo 5 will be available to download from the PlayStation Store on December 24th. The free cars will be “Chrome Line” editions of the Lamborghini Murcielago LP 640,  Jaguar XJ13, and a BMW M3 Coupe. Keep in mind this news report has – so far – only come out of Japan (though Japanese gaming site AndriaSang rather confidently states that “Anyone with GT5 will be able to make the download for free.”)

In the latest issue of Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu (via AndriaSang), Kazunori Yamauchi has revealed that [at least some of] GT5’s “standard” cars will be upgraded to “premium” models in future updates to the game. This is good news for many fans who may have initially been disappointed their favorite car didn’t get the “premium” treatment (with a more detailed 3D model and interior view), though we still don’t know, of course, which or how many models will actually be upgraded:

Gran Turismo 5 has been found to significantly benefit from the installation of a solid-state drive (SSD) into the PlayStation 3 console, according to several reports from around the web over the past few days. One of the most organized and extensive tests was conducted by GTPlanet user padadiso. Click through his collection of graphs below, or head over to his forum topic for more discussion and analysis.

Those of you who paid more than $200 for the Signature Edition of GT5 are probably eager to learn more about the exclusive competition you’re eligible to compete in (it’s still in stock at Amazon, GamePlay, and, of course, eBay). Other than this notice posted on Polyphony Digital’s website, there hasn’t been much said about the most expensive version of the game. What was said, however, was critically important.

IDC Models, the rapid prototyping and model making division of Industrial Design Consultancy (IDC), has just completed a prototype of a radical new concept race car, which comes straight from the mind of one of the world’s top F1 car designers, Adrian Newey, Red Bull Racing’s Chief Technical Officer.

In a new press release, Sony Computer Entertainment has announced the official sales data for Gran Turismo 5. As of December 6, 2010, GT5 sales exceeded 5.5 million units worldwide – or 423,000 copies sold per day for 13 days. That’s half a million more copies than what GT5: Prologue managed to sell in nearly two and a half years, and more than double what Gran Turismo PSP has sold since last October. GT5 is also now halfway along to GT1, GT2, and GT4’s total sales (approximately 10 million per title), but still has a ways to go to match GT3’s 14.8 million.

The web-based portion of Gran Turismo 5’s social networking features revealed at TGS 2010 have been quietly launched on Polyphony Digital’s official Japanese and Hong Kong websites. Fortunately, the Hong Kong site is entirely in English and is fully compatible with all PSN accounts from around the world – sign in here to give it a try.

The first-ever United States GT Academy is about to kick off on December 20, 2010, and Sony officially opened registration earlier this week. Click the big “Register Now” button right here to get started (you must be 18 years of age or older as of December 6, 2010 to enter – see the official rules for more). Once you provide your personal information, you’ll be assigned to one of four different national regions:

Brazil loves motorsport, but they’ve had to wait just a little bit longer to finally get their hands on Gran Turismo 5. It’s finally out today (December 7, 2010), but there probably won’t be a big rush on stores for the game, considering PlayStation 3 consoles cost nearly $1,200 in the South American country due to local taxes and fees. Regardless, thousands of you visit GTPlanet from Brazil every day, so there is definitely a strong fan base in the country looking forward to GT5. Enjoy!

Fire up Gran Turismo 5 and you’ll be prompted to download another new update, version 1.03, weighing in at 149MB in size. No information has yet been released about exactly what this update contains (though the official PlayStation blog hinted at incoming damage tweaks earlier today, thanks @hankolerd), and GT5’s online servers are currently offline until 11:00PM EST. I’ll update this post as soon as more solid information is made available.

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GTPlanet user NISMO_GTR_ noticed something looked a bit odd when he flipped his Mine’s R34 Skyline: Phillips-head screws, an AUTOart logo, and a bit of text that read “1/18 Nissan Skyline R34”. AUTOart, of course, is a large manufacturer of die-cast car models – a popular feature around the Polyphony Digital offices.

Just when you thought you’d explored every nook and cranny of GT5 Prologue and finally laid the game to rest, it’s back from the dead with one more surprise up its sleeve: a super-secret “Special” menu. As revealed by @Mathieulh on Twitter, the Special menu gives you access to lots of hidden features. Notably, it shows several more tracks in the game such as the Nurburgring Nordschleife, Circuit de la Sarthe, and Tsukuba (though they can’t actually be selected). You can make all the cars available, create a race and specify the make and model of each of your opponents, tinker with visible menu options, and more.