Earlier today we met with Polyphony Digital's Kazunori Yamauchi and were treated to an almost hour-long presentation that showed off a number of previously unannounced features. Gran Turismo 5 still isn't finished, but its November 2 release date now appears to be set in stone, so the team at Polyphony has only a few more months to keep cramming new stuff onto the apparently almost-full Blu-ray disc. The game will purportedly be shown in its entirety at August's GamesCom event in Germany, but Yamauchi still had plenty of interesting things to talk about here at E3.

The first revelation in today's Gran Turismo 5 presentation was that, of the 1,000-plus cars featured in the game, only 200 or so will be what Yamauchi described as "premium" cars. Unlike the 800-plus "standard" cars, these will feature meticulously detailed interiors, and after collisions, their panels will be modeled in such a way that they can come apart and fully deform. The standard cars still look superb, but the level of detail just isn't the same. In fact, most of the standard cars have been taken from previous GT games and optimized for the PS3's graphics shader. For the record, even though standard cars can't be damaged in the same ways that premium models can, they'll still be susceptible to physics-based damage, dents, dirt, and scratches.

At one point during the presentation, while showing off close-ups of engines, wheels, and grilles that compared real photos to GT5 screenshots (almost impossible to distinguish between the two), Yamauchi conceded that his team has "actually gone too far in modeling some of this detail" and even went so far as to suggest that it might be "more suited to the next generation of PlayStation." The most impressive of these shots--even more impressive than the Audi wheels and ceramic brakes, or the Ferrari engine underneath a glass hood--was undoubtedly the one that showed the interior of a racecar, possibly a Nascar. The interior was absolutely packed with minute details, including a carbon fiber panel of switches and buttons, safety wires, and, of course, the driver's harness.

Speaking of Nascar, nine different models of Nascar have been confirmed for inclusion in Gran Turismo 5, and Yamauchi is hopeful that additional models will be added either prior to or after the game's release. All of the Nascar rules will be in full effect, and we got to see some great-looking screenshots of pit crews working on cars. At the request of Nascar, you'll be able to use their cars on tracks other than those that they're normally raced on, and according to Yamauchi, they're extremely quick even on circuits like the Nurburgring.

Germany's Nurburgring is one of six previously unconfirmed tracks for GT5 being shown at this year's E3. The other five are Circuit de la Sarthe, Rome, Madrid, Tuscany, and the test track from BBC's Top Gear TV show. All of them are, predictably, incredibly detailed, and Yamauchi revealed that the city circuits of Madrid and Rome (the latter of which incorporates the incredible-looking Colosseum) each took two years to finish. The Tuscany track, on the other hand, will see you racing through a wide-open environment composed largely of fields. The most impressive track, though, was the Nurburgring, not only because it's so huge, but also because of the ridiculous amount of work that has gone into re-creating it. For example, when racing in a 24-hour event at the track (which you will have the option to do in real time), you'll not only get to see the day-night transition, but because it's such a long event, you'll notice that many of the spectators have tents or camper vans that aren't there during normal races. Polyphony Digital has photographed every inch of the famously graffiti-daubed track in order to make sure that it's as accurate and as up to date as possible in the game. Some of the offensive stuff has been removed, but if you've written something family-friendly on the track in the past year or two, there's a good chance it has made it into the game. And hey, you can even take a photo of it as proof.

Like Gran Turismo 4 before it, Gran Turismo 5 will include a fully featured photo mode. In fact, it will feature two. Race Photo mode will let you pause races and replays in order to get action shots of cars as they hop over curbs, kick up dust and debris, and collide with one another, for example. Photo Travel mode, on the other hand, lets you manually position your cars in beautiful locales from all over the world and take the kinds of photos that you might see in glossy car magazines and such. Three Photo Travel locations were shown for the first time at E3, including Kyoto Gion in Japan, the Abbey of Saint Galgano in Italy, and Red Bull's Hangar-7 complex in Austria. Even if you're not familiar with these locations in real life, it's hard not to be impressed by how amazing they look in this mode, especially while you're walking around them trying to find the perfect spots for your shots. As in the previous game, you'll have loads of professional camera settings to play around with, but if you find that stuff a little daunting, you'll also have the option to more or less point and click as if you're using an automatic camera. Incidentally, it will be possible to take photos from inside car cockpits, though it's not clear whether this feature will be available in standard as well as premium models. Additional Travel Photo locations will be revealed in the coming weeks and months, and it sounds like even more might be released as downloadable content in the future.