BBC Top Gear Magazine October 2015

It should have been easy: deploy the brilliant team here to create the definitive list of the 100 coolest cars of all time. How hard could that be? Very, if the late nights, passionate arguments and constant reworking of the list were anything to go by. In the end, (including 10 nominations apiece from Chris Evans and our online audience, some of which overlapped with ours, some of which didn’t) it, somewhat of-brief, finished up as the 149 coolest cars – editing the list down to the nice round hundred was impossible without at least two members of staff handing in their notices. But what is it that makes a car cool? There’s no doubt that, as you delve into these pages, there will be cars you’ll agree with, hopefully…

INTERWEB, FACEBOOK, TWITTER, LETTER, CARRIER PIGEON. YOU SEND IT, WE PRINT IT TWITTER.COM/BBC_TOPGEAR FACEBOOK.COM/TOPGEAR INBOX@TOPGEAR.COM SECOND FLOOR A, ENERGY CENTRE, IMMEDIATE MEDIA COMPANY LONDON LIMITED, MEDIA VILLAGE, 201 WOOD LANE, LONDON W12 7TN All hail the roofess, V12-engined Super Veloce edition of Lamborghini’s poster boy. Your 740bhp runaround for £350k Is anyone in the business of buying organs? I have a few I’m looking to fog. YingTangDan I don’t need one, but you can sell me a lung if you want. James Cray Wow, this week was full of eye candy. Alpine, Aston GT, this, F40. So much better than fast crossovers and six-wheel SUVs. Puma How soon before some godawful tuning company ruins it? Peter Norrish Anyone know of any good banks to rob? Scott Burge This, or the SV Coupe?” Whichever one is…

My name is Chris and I have a car problem. What is it with us? Cars physically excite me. Not in the way that bloke got excited (the bloke who was arrested for making love to a Land Rover Discovery in Holywell in 2013), but they do make visceral things happen within my very being. What’s that about? It must be addiction. Now, back to the business of TG and the fact that I’ve been given the job of hosting the biggest and best car show the world’s ever seen. This means I might actually spontaneously combust at any moment from now until 2018. Which, as long as it’s caught on film, I don’t really mind... “He died of cars.” “What, you mean he was run over?” “No.” “So was…

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT NEW CARS THIS MONTH BIG THIS MONTH Bentley Bentayga Bentley jumps on the luxury SUV gravy train TURN OVER Prepare to choose a side. The Bentayga – Bentley’s first attempt at a luxury SUV – has arrived, and while it’s not nearly as retina-searing as the 2012 EXP 9 F Concept that heralded its arrival, the styling will divide opinion like nothing since Ed’s ‘Milibeard’. Still, “impactful” styling hasn’t hurt the rest of Bentley’s line-up, has it? It might be raised and toughened to ft the SUV mould, but none of Bentley’s signature attention to detail has been lost along the way. The twin headlights are surrounded by ‘floating’ LED rings, the tail lights illuminate in the shape of Bentley’s flying B and those…

1 Kia Sportage is the ultimate all-rounder Kia says its fourth-gen Sportage is, erm, sportier than ever. We’re not so sure. It swaps its predecessors creases and angles for a more rounded look with a wider ‘tiger-nose’ grille. Let’s hope it’s sharper to drive than it looks. 2 Frankfurt will preview electric Audi SUV Audi is serious about building an electric SUV. You’ll be able to buy one in 2018, and this sketch is our first peek at the concept. It’s basically an R8 e-tron on stilts, sent to destroy the Tesla Model X. 3 Ford sets Mountune onto the Focus 4 Hyundai is posh. Stop sniggering at the back Hyundai doesn’t care what you think, it wants to be premium. Which is why it has built this 420bhp V8-powered…

BMW has forgotten to look up the meaning of “concept” in the dictionary, because the BMW Concept M4 GTS you see here looks a lot like the full production car will when it arrives within the next 12 months. Wings and all. You may remember the equally orange, previous-gen, £118k M3 GTS, and the idea is much the same here: a harder, lighter and faster version of the new M4, drawing oranger links between the racetrack and the road. The orange front splitter and boltedon rear wing are both manually adjustable, allowing you to unleash your inner Stig and tweak the downforce balance on track days. Both are made from CFRP, along with the bonnet, to shave precious grams from the kerbweight and fractionally lower the centre of gravity. Besides…