What do they say about working with animals and children? Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the future of automotive journalism - honest, forthright and direct evaluation of both car and brand.

Our scribe’s name is Liam McGill. His did is known around here as 1985Gripen, and this is the fantastic piece of work that Gripen found on the family coffee table the other day.

Owners of modern Saabs, be warned, and be prepared to wince at one point of the review. I’d like to note at this point that the views of the writer do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, but that I admire his forthright manner.

Click to enlarge:

Gripen’s added a few notes by way of explanation:

I came home last night and found a paper on our coffee table. It was an essay by my 11-year-old son Liam. I later found-out that it’s a project for his Spanish class and this weekend we need to translate it into Spanish.

The box with “year” under it is his placeholder because he couldn’t remember the year of my car.

“The top opens” threw me for a loop as mine is a 3-door, not a ‘vert, but then I figured-out he’s referring to the sunroof.

“If you can fix it every once in a while…” is because a 23-year-old car ends up at the mechanic a lot. He often goes with me to pick up the car and chat-up my Saab indie.

I hope any owners of newer Saab’s won’t be offended by his “You may prefer a newer SAAB [editor's note: notice he spells it in all-caps], but those [sic] ugly, and they look like every other car…”

“It has no airbags” - he particularly likes that because it means he can ride in the front passenger seat though the seat’s too low and he has to crane his neck to see over the dash - he’s small for his age.

“It only has a lap-belt in the back-middle seat” is a point of note of his because in our other Saabs (the newer “ugly” ones, apparently) he likes to ride in the rear middle seat because he can see through the front windshield and is less likely to get car-sick and also, that’s the safest seat in the car.

I laughed out-loud when I read this and I hope you will too.

Congreatulations, Liam, on a fine piece of work. I’ve read a few paid professionals that could learn a thing or two from that!

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