To lynch PD about the slow VGT releases is the equivalent of shooting the messenger - there is nothing they can do about it. They are at the complete mercy of participating manufacturers, who haven't completed their designs within the time frames originally agreed upon. It's the same with the interiors - if the manufacturers don't provide sufficient CAD data for the insides of the cars, it's not the job of Polyphony's 3D modelers to build them from a design sketch or a make-shift interior that's been glued together for one of the life-size models.
Admittedly, they seem to have been screwed by the manufacturers not giving them what they need, but it's Polyphony's project. I think that there's ways that they could have mitigated the damage that the manufacturers being flaky has caused them.
What I can see from the release timings though is that they probably didn't have many (or any, probably just the Merc) of the cars done up front, they were entirely reliant on the manufacturers delivering the data that they needed on time. With 30-odd manufacturers, it's a fair bet that at least a few of them are going to fail to meet any deadlines you need from them. Proper planning prevents poor performance.
They really needed a handful of VGTs in the bag in December 2013 that they could trickle out over the next few months while they worked on the next ones. A buffer, if you will. I think the piecemeal nature of the releases probably shows that wasn't the case, they're putting them out more or less as they're ready, unless the manufacturer has an event they wish to link it to.
With the recent news article revealing that they were at least working on the project up to two years in advance, they needed to work with a few manufacturers specifically to build that buffer early. Give those manufacturers whatever incentives they need to get the work done, but get it done early so that Polyphony has some flexibility should things start to go pear-shaped.
I don't think Polyphony should be lynched, that word was simply a carry over from the post that I was replying too. It's far too strong. I do think that Polyphony should bear responsibility for the quote/unquote failure of the VGT project to deliver. It's Polyphony's job to plan it in such a way that it can cope with missing deadlines from the manufacturers, at least to a certain extent. I don't accept that there's nothing that they could have done about it, although there's very possibly nothing that they can do about it
now.
If it's in fact the case that more than half of the manufacturers simply haven't done the work required, then Polyphony didn't do a good enough job of selling them on why they should be spending their time on the VGT project instead of something else. The manufacturers should be doing this because they want to, or because they see benefit to their brand. If that doesn't exist, then of course the manufacturers are going to shaft Polyphony. They'll spend their time on whatever provides the most value to their company.
In the ideal world, Polyphony would have presented the manufacturers with an opportunity that was too good to miss, and they'd all be falling over themselves to be first in line. In hindsight, it seems rather doubtful that the manufacturers place a terribly high value on the VGT project. It's probably an "if our designers have nothing better to do" thing.
And unfortunately, it may have been at least partially the cause of it's own demise. The VGT project got off to a slow start, which may have got some manufacturers reconsidering whether it was worth the resources required. The VGT project was a great idea, but it really needed to start very strong and then leverage that strength into showing other manufacturers what a valuable tool it could be.
Hype builds hype, and I think with proper pacing of releases the VGT project stood a good chance of whipping itself up into a car culture phenomenon. The reactions to the original Merc VGT were certainly very strong, but the lack of an immediate follow-up meant that the press was never really capitalised on.
It's quite a shame, because it's one of the more interesting ideas that has been put in a racing game for a while. And it's something that only really GT could have pulled off, I doubt any other racing game had the sales numbers and media presence to make it attractive enough to the manufacturers, not even Forza.
As you say, there's not much to be done about it now. But when a project doesn't work out as planned, it's always good to look back and think "could I have done anything to make that better?" I don't know all the ins and outs of what went on, but I find it hard to believe that there was nothing that could have been changed to make the VGT project a bigger success.
P.S. Apologies for the wall of text, but project management is something I'm reasonably passionate about. It's fine for things to go wrong sometimes, but anyone who's ever run a project of any size knows that something
always goes wrong. It's wise to plan your project in such a way as to allow for that.
I find it hard to believe that Polyphony doesn't know this, but there's reasonable circumstantial evidence that at least in this case they either didn't, or things were going catastrophically wrong even before release.
..... I think PD will bring the new update around mid-March, near to Project CARS release date. It will have the Alpine VGT, the Lexus VGT, the "paintable rear wings", one of the two remaining features (or maybe both, we can't be sure) and MAYBE..... just MAYBE, we will see something about the FIA Online Championship they mentioned some months ago. Forget about the secret track found in the Alpine VGT video, because I've already set the standards very high for now 
