Perhaps not.

No doubt there would have been pressure from a marketing point of view to get the car out there and in the television spot light.

I'm sure there was countless meetings on whether it was a good idea to release the car to Top Gear in that state, and obviously they decided to do that.

Calculated risk I suppose. They lost though, as the car didn't get a great review, which almost certainly had some impact on sales. As we all know, Clarkson has an army of loyal followers amongst the car buying public.

Incidentally, it's been a long time since I saw the TG review of the VXR, did they mention the fact the car they had wasn't finished?