Gran Turismo->ke3689 fans who are getting giddy about the game's impending launch now have something specific to hitch their proverbial wagons on.

Series creator, Kazunori Yamauchi, has come out and said that the sixth installment of the hit racing franchise is roughly 80-percent complete, with some fine tuning still in the pipeline before the game hits shelves later this year.

In addition to earlier disclosing that Gran Turismo 7 will come out within two years, news of GT6 being this close to completion is stoking what is already a growing fire among Gran Turismo fans

While it's understandable to look forward to GT7, considering that it's going to be released for the much more powerful PlayStation 4->ke4615, looking past GT6 is going to be a mistake.

It'll be interesting to see how fast the game flies off the shelves or how close it's going to come to approaching the $800 million Gran Theft Auto V fetched in its first day.

Click past the jump to read more about Gran Turismo 6

Gran Turismo

The Gran Turismo franchise was officially unveiled in 1997 for the PlayStation video game console. The game is developed by Polyphony Digital, and is remains one of the truest racing simulators.

The game saw five different installments: the original Gran Turismo and then series 2 (1999), 3 (2000), 4 (2005) and 5 (2010). The fifth installment was the first game in the franchise to include both mechanical and external damage modeling, and vehicle overturning.

The sixth installment will go on sale on December 6th around the world, exclusively for the PlayStation 3 platform. The game features a total of 33 locations, with 71 different layouts, one of them being the 1.86 km (1.15-mile) hill climb at Goodwood. There are also 1,200 cars to choose from.