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Mini Cooper Countryman gets New York freshening

The Mini Countryman has undergone a subtle midlife facelift for the New York auto show, four years after it was launched in North America. The lightly reworked range-topping Mini Countryman model is expected to go on sale in July at prices company officials suggest will remain largely unchanged here in the U.S. As this first batch of official photographs reveals, there is very little to distinguish the refreshed Countryman from the existing model.

Honda bumps up new Accord prices by $300

Honda Motor Co. said Monday that prices on the redesigned 2013 Accord sedan will increase, on average, by less than $300, even with the addition of thousands of dollars worth of standard features and technology. Honda has overhauled its top-selling model for 2013 with new, more fuel-efficient engines, a continuously variable transmission, additional standard equipment and other available technology, such as lane departure warning and blind spot detection.

Is the car industry heading toward the past?

Is the future of cars decidedly old school? An NPR blogger certainly thinks so. NPR Business Desk reporter Sonari Glinton recently likened the 2014 Detroit auto show to an era 40 years ago, reflecting the possibility that the renewed zeitgeist of an entire convention indicates a "retro" kind of thinking.