I got front cover of FF without any of those things, largely by being a bit more original with the colour, although it was (not any more, had too much abuse since) a well turned out car as well.
At the end of the day, it does get a bit boring reading about a stage 3 saph every month and all that is different to the month before is the colour of the samcos, so I can see why they find big bhp and track cars etc interesting.