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First Sight: Mercedes-Benz SL

The new high-tech, low weight Mercedes SL roadster receives its official global unveil next week in Detroit but Car Design News got an early peek of the final production car and had a chat with its designers at Mercedes' US advanced design studio in Carlsbad, California back in November. "We want to get back to clean, long-lasting design," director of Mercedes global advanced design and SL project leader, Steffen Kohl told CDN at the exclusive preview of the sixth-generation model. "So the new SL is long, sleek and still full of tension in the feature lines but less wedgy." In a short presentation Kohl felt all SLs became successfully iconic in their times because they followed two key rules – ‘sensuality' and ‘cleanness' – but alluded that the first rule may have been lost in more recent eras.

Mercedes-Benz recalls diesel cars for a problem with the fuel filter

Mercedes-Benz is recalling nearly 7,000 diesel vehicles from the 2011 and 2012 model years to fix a possible defect with the diesel filter that could cause it to leak fuel. Mercedes said it is concerned that a crash or a fire could ensue in the event of a fuel leak from the area around the heating component in affected vehicles. The recall will involve an estimated 6,782 vehicles.

Hummer nears the end of the trail

The curtain is rapidly falling on Hummer, General Motors' ill-fated rough-and-tough brand of trucks and SUVs. The final H3 rolled off the assembly line at 9:07 a.m. Central time on Tuesday at the Hummer factory in Shreveport, La., marking the end of production for the brand, a spokesman said.