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Mercedes GLA SUV UK launch down a salt mine in Cheshire

The new Mercedes GLA down a salt mine in Cheshire Trying to find an unusual venue for new car launches is something that taxes the brains of car PR teams, and Mercedes came up with somewhere a little left field for the launch of the new GLA Compact SUV – the UK’s biggest salt mine at Winsford in Cheshire. The Winsford Rock Salt Mines – 130 miles of salt mining tunnels running under Cheshire – are the result of salt mining since the 19th century and now comprise of 130 miles of tunnels some 189 metres below ground, a void beneath the earth of 23 million cubic metres. Still a working salt mine, Winsford is also home to a massive storage facility for, among others, the National Archive, where constant temperatures of 14C make for an ideal storage environment.

New Jeep Grand Cherokee facelift to get European debut at Geneva

The new Jeep Grand Cherokee will arrive at the Geneva Motor Show in EU guise in March ahead of a launch in the UK and Europe in the third quarter 2013. In all the ways that matter, the Jeep Grand Cherokee (which will be a 2014 model by the time it arrives in showrooms in the UK) for Europe is the same as that for North America, although it will have different engines, and just about all the shortcomings of the current Grand Cherokee have been addressed by the facelift. That means the cheap in places interior gets a good makeover to make the Grand Cherokee a more convincing place to be for European tastes, and the Atari-like Infotainment centre gets a proper makeover too to make it more 21st, and less 20th, century.

New life for Lincoln from the ashes of Mercury

The demise of Mercury has one potentially positive outcome for the car world: a revitalization of Lincoln. News of Mercury's pending closure was paired with Ford's plans to boost Lincoln's lineup. Six new or significantly refreshed products will arrive in the next four years, and a seventh, the restyled MKX, is preparing for launch.