SEMA

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.

Before the 2012 GT Awards, I had the opportunity to sit down with Kazunori Yamauchi for a brief interview. We covered a wide range of topics, and I tried to cover some of the most frequently asked questions and discussed topics in GTPlanet’s forums.

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.

At the 2011 SEMA Show last week, I had the very special opportunity to – for the first time – personally interview the master himself: Kazunori Yamauchi. We had a great chat, and I am happy to report that Kazunori seemed happy, relaxed, and in good spirits.

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.

Most of the Kazunori Yamauchi interviews from “mainstream” gaming sites are generally pretty weak, but I’ve got to hand it to IGN editor Ryan Geddes for asking some direct, important questions during his time with the GT series creator at SEMA. Although Yamauchi’s ability to talk his way out of specific answers remains strong, Geddes’ latest interview drew some interesting comments. Watch the interview above (look out for replay interior footage of J.R. Rocha’s G37), or keep reading for complete analysis of all the high points…

Finally, we’ve got our first look at video of J.R. Rocha’s G37 in the latest Gran Turismo 5 SEMA demo. Unfortunately, the quality is very poor compared to what people managed to grab at previous shows, but it’s better than nothing, right? The lack of footage seems to indicate that the GT Awards show was the only place the demo was playable, which would explain the lack of more footage. Thanks to akumatose for sharing these! The first clip, above, shows replay footage, and the second provides a look at the interior.