We have recently announced that the General Catalogue of Variable Stars enters the stage of its fifth, purely electronic edition (GCVS 5.1). Recently, we have incorporated a new, completely revised version for 1408 variable stars in the constellation of Centaurus into the GCVS 5.1. Working on this revision, we used current possibilities of data mining, suggested new variability types for many variable stars, found new light elements for a large number of periodic variables. This paper describes the work fulfilled during the preparation of the GCVS 5.1 version for Centaurus, discusses in detail a number of cases most significant astrophysically.