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.

A few more pictures Philip Koenen’s 1970 Ford Mustang were snapped by AutoBlog, providing a much closer look at the latest addition to Gran Turismo 5’s roster. We’re still, collectively, waiting on video footage from the new SEMA demo, which supposedly features previous GT Award winners, so if you see anything floating around on the web, please let me know!

It’s taken a surprisingly long amount of time for word on the latest GT Awards winner to get out, but IGN is first to break cover and confirm the winner: a 1970 Ford Mustang with a 427 SOHC “Cammer” engine. The car is a mean-yet-classy addition to Gran Turismo, carefully pieced together by Philip Koenen and Grand Touring Garage in Oregon for a “Hong Kong client” after a long search for the right body and engine. The powerplant is particularly special: considered one of the best Ford has ever built, it produces 616 hp at 7000 rpm and 515 lbs/ft of torque at 3800 rpm.

Other finalists included a Scion tC with a very, very interesting front-mounted wing, a Camaro SS stuffed with carbon fiber, and an upgraded, twin-turbo Lamborghini Gallardo LP560-4, though none were able to capture Yamauchi’s attention like the ‘Stang. Watch for it next spring in Gran Turismo 5!

UPDATE (Nov. 7):  New pictures of the other finalists and awards ceremony added to the gallery below.

Yamauchi’s latest interview with AutoWeek magazine has quite a few surprises, with Yamauchi going so far as to confirm GT5’s development cost and a controversial new feature. Keep reading for a quick summary of everything you need to know…

- The decision of when Gran Turismo 5 will be released in North America and Europe is entirely up to Sony.

- Because GT5 has been built new, from the ground up, it has taken them considerably longer previous sequels. Therefore, no-one at Polyphony Digital is surprised at how long it has taken to develop, and to quote Yamauchi, “that’s the amount of time it takes to get it right”.

- There are three factors which determine what cars are included: the cars that Yamauchi wants to be in it, the cars that players want, and the cars the manufacturers want. Manufacturers have offered to pay to have their vehicles included, but Polyphony Digital has never accepted any money. Instead, they work together with the other companies which usually develops “into a relationship where we collaborate to raise the level of the game”.

- When asked about the number of tracks, Yamauchi reiterates the mysterious “20 different environments” and “around 70 different layouts”, which we have been hearing for quite some time now. When pushed, Yamauchi refused to comment further.

- On damage: “It is not very hard, though it was not in previous Gran Turismos”.

- When asked about features that could make the game more accessible to new players, Yamauchi dropped an unexpected bombshell: “you can reverse your game”. Assuming we can take this translation literally, Yamauchi must be referring to a “rewind” feature that has recently become popular in other racing series like DiRT, Need for Speed, and Forza. As you may expect, the rewind functionality allows you to “back-up” in time and resume play before you messed up a particular corner. This can come in particularly handy when learning a tough segment of a track, though it is controversial because some players believe having such an option makes it too easy to correct your mistakes.

- The entire NASCAR roster of tracks, teams, and drivers will not be in the game. However, you will be able to take the different NASCAR cars to “a number of tracks not found on the NASCAR calendar”.

- Yamauchi has played Forza Motorsport 3, and offered his impressions: “It’s very similar in a lot of aspects to Gran Turismo. Some base components of the game are very different from Gran Turismo. It’s a little bit different from what a simulator is. You can feel it when you drive it.”

- Gran Turismo 6 will be coming, but it won’t take nearly as long to develop. In Yamauchi’s words: “GT5 represents a whole new operating system. GT6 is just new apps that run on the GT5 system.”

- There “probably” will be additional content available to download in GT5, though nothing specific has been planned at this time.

- It has cost $60 million to produce Gran Turismo 5. However, it’s a wise investment in a franchise which has earned billions, and as Yamauchi notes, there are other games which cost more.

That’s all started to change over the weekend, however, as the Tokyo Game Show demo of Gran Turismo 5 was shown at DigiExpo in Finland. In a video interview with Finnish website Iltalehti, Sony Marketing Manager Suman Rath casually mentioned that “you can make your own tracks” (around 2:25). First picked up by GTPlanet user Timppaq yesterday, further discussion and analysis from other Finnish members have been able to confirm the true meaning of his words. Read their posts here, and please share your own impressions if you speak the language!

As with most off-hand, translated interview comments, we may not be getting completely accurate information, but it is still quite promising. Proceed with caution!

It’s time for the 7th annual Gran Turismo Awards at the SEMA show in Las Vegas! As you may recall, this unique event is a big deal for GT fans and car tuners alike, as Yamauchi picks his favorite car from the show to be featured in the next GT game. Award winners from previous years have brought us some of the series’ most memorable and cars, including the 1962 Buick Special (’03 winner) in Gran Turismo 4 and the 1960 Art Morrison Chevrolet Corvette (’06 winner) in GT5 Prologue.

This year will be a little different, though, as Sony has just announced that the 2007 and 2008 award winners (HPA Motorsport’s Audi TT and JR Rocha’s Infiniti G37) will be playable in a fresh new Gran Turismo 5 demo on the show floor. Kazunori Yamauchi himself will, of course, be on hand to personally select the 2009 winner, so we should also expect several new interviews popping up in the coming week.

On a considerably more somber note, it has just come to my attention (via Chronos in the forums), that JR Rocha, the personal owner of the 2008 award-winning Infiniti G37, passed away just last month from a heart attack. Presumably, SEMA 2009 would have been his first chance to play his own car in the game, making this turn of events all the more tragic. We’ve lost a great automotive enthusiast and car designer -- may he rest in peace, and may his creation live on forever in GT5.

Here’s a video clip from last year’s show, with a look at each of the finalists and JR’s impressions after getting top honors:

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

- When asked why GT5 is taking so long, Yamauchi reiterates the game is “difficult to develop”, and “the dimensions of the game are huge, it is simply too great. It is so complex, so vast in its scale”.

- There is pressure from Sony to deliver a high quality game, and the team at Polyphony Digital understand the implications of their work – it has potential to move many PlayStation 3 consoles for the company.

- Physics, sound, and online-features will be Gran Turismo 5’s greatest contributions to the evolution of the GT series.

- Once again, damage which has been seen so far is not indicative of the “final product”. He admits the game will not be able to portray more severe accidents, but they’re still working to make it as “realistic as possible”.

Yamauchi’s most interesting responses come when the interviewer inquires (and continues to press) on dynamic weather and time-of-day functionality…

CBS: And speaking of new features – as it looks, with weather and time of day?
Yamauchi: If you look back at the history of racing games, there were different weather conditions, or day and night racing games already in the eighties. But when we 1997 “Gran Turismo” made, not great at first, we dealt with such features, they did not bother us particularly. We are constantly experimenting with weather and lighting conditions, and such things. If we had, we might feel tomorrow integrate into the game. But whether this feature is present or not is not the decisive factor. It’s about whether this feature is the overall quality of the game actually increased or whether it reduces it. Just out is our attention.

CBS: You do not say whether these features in the game or not?
Yamauchi: We are experimenting with it. I want to stress again that the value of a game does not really depend on how many features are offered, all of which in the final game is available. That does not decide whether a game is good or not. What we focus really is the question of whether the game is good in its entirety or not. We have to proceed somewhat cautiously.

Dynamic weather and lighting conditions are easily two of Gran Turismo 5’s most-wanted features, yet each time they’re discussed, Yamauchi dances around the question, instead discussing how they may affect the overall quality of the game. This leads to speculation they may be having trouble simulating these conditions along with other visual features which cannot be compromised (frame rate, for example). It would be fascinating to learn more about what’s really going on here, though the true answer may never leave the halls of Polyphony Digital.

Mercedes-Benz is running a special blog, hosted by “Matthew”, covering the launch of the company’s new SLS AMG at various events around the world. Of course, he was on hand at the Tokyo Game Show, and shared the experience with the video above. While there’s little that we haven’t already seen, things get a little more interesting when Polyphony Digital employees show up to take a second look at the SLS on display.

Presumably, they’re looking to refine the model in the game, and seemed particularly curious about the functionality of the headlights. They also observe the opening of the fuel door cover – something which will need to be simulated thanks to the new, fully animated pit crews who attach a fueling rig to the car. As we slowly learn more and more about the game, it will be interesting to see how Yamauchi’s team choose to implement these small details.

Anyone interested in cooking up a conspiracy theory should keep in mind that several of our readers, after talking with Sony employees running the “House” confirmed that GT5 would be arriving at the display “soon”. Was it an honest mistake, then, or was the game pulled after its appearance started getting publicity? It would be interesting to hear what those workers have to say about all of this, so be sure and ask them if you still decide to go (just be nice about it – remember, it’s not their fault).

Alas, it might not be all bad news: as pointed out by several readers in the comments to my previous post, Gran Turismo 5 is on schedule to be shown at DigiExpo in Helsinki, Finland on October 30 – but can we really believe you this time, Sony?