At some point back during the Carter administration, Sony and Polyphony Digital announced development of Gran Turismo 5 for the PlayStation 3. Sure, they went ahead and released GT 5: Prologue, but most viewed that as little more than a really expensive game demo. At one point, the game had a rumored release of November of 2009, and then it was looking like maybe at some point during this quarter. As of now, it is scheduled to be in stores beginning in November of this year, but we all know to take that with a grain of salt. There have been some recent signs, however, that the game may be nearing completion. The first was the playable demo that came to the PSN last December, and the newest is the above trailer, released on the PlayStation Blog this morning.

There are a few things in that trailer that are worth pointing out. The first is the Subaru rally car that gets crashed into on a turn, and, if you'd notice, takes damage. That's right ladies and gentlemen, we finally get a look at the first ever damage modeling to come to a Gran Turismo game. It should come as no surprise that the damage looks great, since, say what you will about GT games, they always push the graphical envelope. The second thing that stands out to me from that video is how good the NASCAR footage looks. Granted, it's not the first time we've seen America's most popular sport in the game, but it's worth noting. Finally, you may have noticed that some of the racing was going on at night. Yep, that's right, night racing is the other brand new feature that Sony is pounding its chest about.

As recently as this week's GDC, Sony is still making the claim that GT5 will hit store shelves before the year is out, and if the progress that is being shown in the trailer is any kind of indication, it looks like we're getting close to the finish line. Who else is totally pumped for this?