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An all-American car for an all-American pastime

Winning 1960 Corvette scanned for Gran Turismo

Candace Lombardi
In a software-driven world, it's easy to forget about the nuts and bolts. Whether it's cars, robots, personal gadgetry or industrial machines, Candace Lombardi examines the moving parts that keep our world rotating. A journalist who divides her time between the United States and the United Kingdom, Lombardi has written about technology for the sites of The New York Times, CNET, USA Today, MSN, ZDNet, Silicon.com, and GameSpot. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET.
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Candace Lombardi
2 min read

Corvettes and video games, is there anything more American?

As with other car contests, part of the prize for "Best in Show" at the fourth annual Gran Turismo Awards at the SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) show in Las Vegas was that the car would be featured in a video game.

A 1960 Chevy Corvette by Art Morrison Enterprises, who also took Best Hot Rod at the November 2006 event, will be featured in the next edition of Gran Turismo.

1960 Corvette
Art Morrison

This will not simply be an artist's rendering.

Jalopnik reports that the guys from Gran Turismo have recently digitally scanned the 1960 Corvette--and not just the body to get a feel for its curves.

Most people agree that cars in Gran Turismo handle the same way as they do in real life. Gran Turismo's method for translating car performance into accurate digital simulation is secret, but its interaction with the Corvette gives you an idea of how things are done.

In order to make a "binary reproduction," a red laser hooked up to a computer scanned the car. The Corvette was produced in real time on a computer screen as a detailed three-dimensional line drawing. In addition to the car's interior, the Corvette was put on a lift to get exact details like the shape of the exhaust headers, according to Jalopnik. Photos of the car and videos of it in action were also taken and will be used to fill in the 3D wire model, with plans to do more filming of the car in action.

The Gran Turismo crew said it will take six months to build an exact "working" digital replica of the 1960 Chevy Corvette. That is longer than it took to rebuild the actual car.