Uh oh. In an interview with Spanish website Canarias Al Dia, CEO of Sony Entertainment Portugal James Armstrong had some disconcerting words for Gran Turismo fans. Via Google translation (user subsonic offers another, human translation):

Now that we’re into February, the second round of GT Academy 2010 is about to begin! Participants down under will kick things off this Wednesday, February 3rd, before the European finals begin this weekend. Our forum moderator Sphinx is compiling a list of each national final, along with its date, venue, and all GTPlanet users who are competing.

Remember the custom-built 1970 Mustang that won top honors at the 2009 GT Awards during SEMA last November? It’s quite an impressive machine, and PS Forums user SWERV_GRIFFIN was on hand when a Polyphony Digital team visited by Grand Touring Garage to collect data about the car. He’s shared his impressions and hundreds of pictures of the car (here, here, here, and here) so we can see it before, during, and after its extensive makeover.

Here’s an example of when bad driving turned out to be a good thing, as it provides a quick (very quick…as in 2 seconds) but somewhat interesting peek at the scaled-down production car damage in Gran Turismo 5. As you may recall, there will be two types of damage models in the game: one for racing cars and one for standard, production cars. While the damaged Subaru WRX WRC car, with missing bumpers and doors, has become a rather familiar sight, the less aggressive damage modeling has remained a bit more mysterious.

German readers, listen up! Via their “Daimler” blog, Mercedes-Benz has just announced the “Gran Turismo 5 SLS AMG Driving Experience” in the Mercedes Museum at the company’s Stuttgart headquarters. Apparently, the installation  consists of two GT5 Prologue-branded cockpits (the same kind Sony awarded GTPlanet user, Ahmed back in ’08) running yet another new GT5 demo featuring only the SLS AMG and the Nurburgring Nordschleife. What really makes it special, though, is a very generous time limit of what appears to be around 12:00 minutes.

Polyphony Digital has shared an interesting “ranking transition chart”, showing just how close the battle for the top spot was over the last few days of the Time Trial competition in North America. Of course, these guys weren’t exactly fighting for the same prize as the luckier players in Europe and Austraila/NZ (a visit to the Indy 500 or the chance to become a real racing driver, respectively), so there probably wasn’t as much desperation in the final moments as there was for GT Academy hopefuls. Regardless, I like this sort of data, and would be happy to see similar lap time analytical tools in GT5.

While there isn’t anything new shown off in these Toyota FT-86G Concept screen shots, it’s still fun to look at them in full 8MP glory.

Heads-up to all of you GT Academy hopefuls out there – the first round of the competition is now over, and it’s time for you to register with Sony if you want to compete in your national final. It’s easy enough: just go to the official GT site, select your country, click on the “National Finals Entry Form” image, and follow the instructions. You only have until midnight GMT on Tuesday, January 26th to complete your registration, so get this done as quickly as possible. Remember: they are accepting entries from the top 30 players (in case anyone from the top 20 is disqualified or doesn’t show up), so double check your ranking to see if you made the cut.

Remember the “Ultimate Gran Turismo Fan” contest Sony held back in November? They set out out to find the most dedicated fans of the series, and this past Friday, the winners were finally announced. First place went to Michael Blevins of Colorado, who started dirt track racing after years of playing GT, and second went to Samuel Sligh III, a passionate Ferrari fan from North Carolina. For their dedication to the series, they’ve been awarded the two very sweet racing suits and helmets worn by Rhys Millen and Tanner Foust in the GT PSP commercial filmed at Laguna Seca.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5H5AGaaiio

Thanks to forum user bladecerco for capturing the first in-car gameplay footage of the Motul Nismo GT-R at CES 2010!

Here’s a closer look at GT5’s “Data  Logger Visualization” feature that was just announced at last weekend’s Tokyo Auto Salon, complete with video of a Lexus IS-F outfitted with the necessary gadgets doing a lap around Fuji.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwLtnur5F84

Here’s some quite literal “screen shots” of the Gran Turismo 5 demo at the European Motor Show 2010 in Brussels, taken by our own Vince_Fiero. He’s taken the novel approach of focusing on in-car game play shots, providing us with a look inside cars we have not yet seen.

Yamauchi’s presence at CES 2010 provided quite a bit of media access and interviews. I’ve already covered the best ones, but there’s a few more small quotes which are also worth mentioning:

Here’s some of the first news to come out of the Tokyo Auto Salon 2010: Polyphony Digital has partnered with auto technology company Denso to develop a “GPS-track day unit”, one of which will be included in the new Toyota FT-86G. It works by monitoring your position as you put in hot laps around a real-world track (which is also in GT5, of course). Pull the memory card out of your car and plug it into your PS3, and the data collected will be used to reconstruct your lap within the game. From there, you’ll be able to watch your replay or compete against yourself by loading the replay as a “ghost” car.

Here’s a new clip of the Toyota FT-86G SPORTS Concept car in Gran Turismo 5. Considering the Tokyo Auto Salon – where GT is expected to make a big showing – is just hours away, assume this car will probably be playable in the latest demo. The video shows no new tracks, but we do get to see the car in the mysterious wind tunnel that’s been spotted in several GT5 clips now…

Our forum user John Parry just picked up on a small update in the US PSN Store – there’s now a free “car pack” available for Gran Turismo PSP that includes the following exotics:

Here’s another look at Nordschleife game-play from the GT5 demo running at CES 2010, via TheBitBag. Thanks to Lord Von for sending this in!