Top Gear's Top 9: delayed cars

Bugatti committed to building its 250mph, 1,000bhp showstopper in 2001. And then the fun began. Cooling, tyre safety, brakes and steering issues all delayed the project, so the first working prototype didn’t move under its own power until 2003. It wasn’t until 2005 that the Veyron went into production.

Infamously, the LF-A took so long to get from the drawing board to millionaire’s bunker that Lexus actually facelifted the concept car. There was an LF-A concept in 2005, which was restyled in 2007, before a roadster was shown off in 2008. Lexus gave us the 552bhp finished product in 2011.

Honda first promised it would build a successor to its first-gen NSX in 2007. A year later, Honda cancelled the project due to the credit crunch. Reports then surfaced in 2011 of a new mid- engined NSX. It finally bore fruit with a concept car in 2012... which made it to showrooms in late 2015.

The Tesla Roadster originally had an estimated arrival of 2014. Then in 2017 it was at the reveal of the (currently delayed) Semi truck. Musk said the car would officially go on sale in 2020. In 2020, this was pushed back to 2021. In 2021, this became a 2022 production date. Then a promise of 2023...

The Cybertruck was unveiled back in November 2019. The production date of late 2021 slipped back to 2022, then 2023, and Tesla has now removed the ability to reserve a Cybertruck from its official website. Meanwhile, electric trucks from Ford and Rivian are much closer.

We first saw this as a design model in July 2016. Since then Aston Martin has had a turbulent time. Obviously a global pandemic hasn’t helped either. Aston announced the first 10 owners would receive their cars in late 2021. Hopefully we’ll finally drive this new lap time benchmark in 2022.

The Project One was revealed in 2017. Following monstrous R&D hurdles concerning the idle speed, emissions and serviceability of the 2015 F1-derived hybrid turbo V6 engine, production was at last slated to absolutely definitely really be on the cards for 2022. Watch this space.

After one of TVR’s traditional financial collapses, the company changed hands in 2013 and started making noises about developing a new car in 2015, to launch in 2017. But in terms of actually building cars, it’s been ominously quiet. Production is now slated for late 2023...

Rumours were rife back in 2014 that a project had been green-lighted, and since then the rumour mill has been non-stop. As recently as 2020 reports said Apple would reveal its car in 2024, while other speculation said Apple was instead moving resources into AI self-driving software. Who knows?