The 8th annual GT Awards were held in Las Vegas last night, and Kazunori Yamauchi gave top honors to Mark Stielow for his custom 1969 Chevrolet Camaro. Check out the complete press release and the first pictures from the event below. Expect a lot more media, video, and interviews to start popping up from SEMA in the next few days.

Gran Turismo 5 and the Red Bull X1 Prototype have both been featured in the latest issue of Top Gear magazine, and the dramatic screenshot above introduces several important new cars to the game. Most notably, you’ll find the new McLaren MP4-12C, a Lamborghini Murcielago LP 670-4 SuperVeloce, the 1965 Alfa Romeo TZ2 (2009 winner of the Polyphony Digital Trophy at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance), the Lexus LF-A, and Philip Koenen’s 1970 Ford “Trans-Cammer” Mustang.

While speaking with Jalopnik today at SEMA, Kazunori Yamauchi stopped short of providing a new release date, but was able to confirm the game discs are being stamped (produced) right now:

Via their official blog, Red Bull offers up three additional screenshots of the new X1 Prototype, one of which provides us a nice view of GT5’s Monaco F1 circuit (or, more precisely, “Cote d’Azur”). We also get a higher-res version of the original Monaco screenshot, along with another look at the car in that mysterious wind-tunnel we’ve seen so much of. I’ve also thrown in a few additional shots which popped up earlier this month, but haven’t been posted to the blog here yet.

Most people have given up on release date news to emerge from Paris Games Week, and with only two weekend days left in October, there’s not much time left for Sony to follow up on their tweet. Regardless, if you’re up in Scandinavia, don’t let that stop you from checking out the Gran Turismo 5 demo on display at the 2010 Oslo Motor Show this weekend.

A stream of interesting tidbits have been trickling into our Gran Turismo 5 forum today via several new magazine articles. First up is the December 2010 issue of PSM3 magazine, which provides a few details as highlighted by our own Dessy182:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvxMEOO4a_E

On October 6th, Sony launched a giveaway competition for a free Gran Turismo 5: Signature Edition package. Since that time, the competition was set to end on the old Australian release date, November 4th. That end date has remained unchanged (confirmed by Google’s cache) – until now. The legal terms and conditions have just been quitely updated to list a new ending date of December 9th.

A German automotive news site, Auto-Presse.de, may have discovered a new real-world track set to debut in Gran Turismo 5: the Hockenheimring. The rumor comes from an SLS AMG press event hosted at the circuit by Mercedes-Benz, where media members were offered the chance to set a few hot laps of their own before riding along with five-time DTM champion Bernd Schneider. A GT5 demo was also on-hand for handling comparisons.

The Paris Games Week is about to kick off on October 27th, and according to these renderings, plenty of space has been set aside in “PlayStation City” for Gran Turismo 5. Seven-time WRC champion and GT fan Sebastien Loeb will be on-hand at the event, competing head-to-head with the public in the game. (He’d better start practicing, though – at his last event, he fell to a GTPlanet user!)

The 2010 GT Awards are right around the corner, and Sony is taking applications from all SEMA attendees who want a shot at getting their car featured in Gran Turismo 5.

Here’s a rather humorous collection of videos by JDMKING13 showcasing the variation in horn sounds between a Corvette Stingray, Lamborghini Gallardo, Audi R8, and an Enzo Ferrari in what appears to be a GT5 kiosk demo. I’m not sure how closely these sounds match up to the real thing, but this should be exciting for those of you itching to use that horn button on your Logitech Driving Force GT…

British gadget magazine T3 hosted a GT5 competition at the Selfridges department store in London on Thursday, and I’m proud to announce that GTPlanet user Synwraith took top honors (you may remember his interviews with the GT Academy 2010 winners). Check out his extensive write-up from the event for all the details and gameplay impressions from the demo on display. For his efforts, he’s been awarded a voucher for a free copy of GT5, a Logitech Driving Force GT, and has been featured on T3’s website.

Car Magazine has just posted a new interview with Kazunori Yamauchi, as part of their big feature on the Red Bull X1 Prototype. It’s a good read (keep in mind it was conducted before the delay), but the most interesting revelation actually comes from a small new screenshot included in the article, taken from inside the X1’s cockpit at the Monaco F1 circuit.

Schick has just launched a new cross-promotional advertising campaign with Sony, offering up special GT5-themed content if you purchase one of their specially-marked razors. Inside the package, you’ll find a 10-digit code, which you can enter here to receive a free GT5 dynamic theme for your PlayStation 3, a GT5 racing suit for your PlayStation Home avatar, or a PlayStation Network movie rental.

In a knowing nod to those of us anxiously awaiting GT5’s new release date, Sony Australia has announced a new 3D TV / PlayStation 3 promotional bundle – which includes a copy of Gran Turismo 5 – with “guaranteed delivery by Christmas”.

Editors from Kotaku Australia were invited to participate in Toyota’s 24-Hour Gran Turismo 5 Challenge at the 2010 Australian Motor Show, and have already shared their impressions from the event. Even though they were admittedly casual players, they enjoyed it quite a bit:

Alternative rock band My Chemical Romance has announced that “Planetary (Go!)”, from their upcoming album, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, will be featured as the “lead song in the opening cinematic” of Gran Turismo 5. Before you run over to YouTube or anywhere else to preview the song – don’t bother. The album will not be released until November 22, and as of right now, there’s no way to listen to it.

The no-holds-barred prototype developed by Polyphony Digital and Red Bull has been revealed in the latest issue of Car magazine in the UK! As you may recall, the X1 is the answer to Kazunori Yamauchi’s question: “If you built the fastest racing car on land, one that throws aside all rules and regulations, what would that car look like, how would it perform, and how would it feel to drive?”