January 2015 issue on stands now

It's nearly 2015 and we're not yet whizzing about in hovercrafts and shiny amphibian motorcycles. While we haven't yet convinced team members to freeze themselves cryogenically to go take a look at the automotive world of the future (we're working on that, though), we've got ourselves a sneak peek of the coming year and it looks suv-veet. Our suv-auvest writers chart out a comprehensive list of new SUVs hitting Indian showrooms. Of these, we sample a sunny yellow Audi Q3 and also the racetrack ready and befittingly hot red RSQ3. Then we pit the Q3 against its nemesis from Merc, the GLA. A new entrant, the Yeti gets its mettle tested against its rival, the CR-V and the segment-best Santa Fe. And then we ditch the urbane and off-road into tiger territory in Land Rovers.

The hatches that hatched a few extra parts to become more than just little cars weren't ignored either – the crossover trifecta of the Fiat Avventura, the Ford EcoSport and the Etios Cross was put to the test. While the Datsun Go hatches a roomier back to earn two more passengers, an extra '+' sign in the name and Sir Mix A Lot dedications, the Ninja 650 loses the fairing to morph into the ER-6n. Does that translate into sheer naked thrill? Flip to our road test to find out. Kawasaki's other green goblin, the Z250 is here too and we find out if it's worth your green.

Naked or not, we've already established that scooters can be equally fun. But some scooters are more equal than others. The defending champion from the last scooter 'fun' test, the Let's, contends with the Scooty Zest and the Mahindra Gusto.

While the issue is packed with big bad SUVs, bikes and crossovers, we also review the well-behaved small cars. How much bad behaviour are the diesel Mini Cooper and Tata's bold little Bolt capable of? We drive the two and are pleasantly surprised with the results.

And coming back to the future, it doesn't look that grim after driving the Toyota Mirai - it runs on hydrogen and emits only vapour. Pretty neat eh? Our quest to find out more about the future isn't over yet – until we ready those six-foot plus cryogenic capsules, get our 248-page time capsule so we can fill you in.