Car Talk
Comedy > Various
Automotive > Various
About the Podcast
America's funniest auto mechanics take calls from weary car owners all over the country, and crack wise while they diagnose Dodges and dismiss Diahatsus. You don't have to know anything about cars to love this one hour weekly laugh fest. Car Talk continues to take the fear out of car repair and find fun in engine failure with classic episodes of this long-running NPR program. Hosted by brothers Tom and Ray Magliozzi – informally known as Click & Clack – Car Talk was one of the most popular and long-running broadcasts and podcasts on NPR. To this day, listeners are drawn in by their Boston accents, wit and charm. The comic duo hosted NPR's Car Talk for a quarter of a century before retiring in 2012. Since then, the show has been heard in rerun episodes titled, "The Best of Car Talk."
About the Host
Tom and Ray Magliozzi
Tom and Ray Magliozzi, the Peabody Award-winning hosts of Car Talk on NPR, are better known as "Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers" — taking their names from the clickety-clack sound made by aging autos. Tom and Ray dispense car advice in the broad accents of the tough East Cambridge neighborhood where they grew up. Both are graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1973, the brothers opened a do-it-yourself garage in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "Hacker's Haven" provided rented space and tools for clients fixing their own cars. But as hippies turned into yuppies and car repair became more complicated, "Hacker's Haven" turned into the "Good News Garage," a conventional car repair service. In 1977, Tom and Ray were invited to the studios of NPR member station WBUR in Boston, along with other area mechanics, to discuss car repair. Tom accepted the invitation, and when he was invited back the following week, he asked, "Can I bring my brother, Ray?" The rest, as they say, is history.
The Magliozzis were subsequently given their own weekly program, Car Talk, which soon attracted a large local following. In January 1987, then host Susan Stamberg asked Tom and Ray to be weekly contributors to NPR's Weekend Edition and on October 31, 1987, Car Talk premiered as a national program, presented by NPR. Tom Magliozzi holds a doctorate in marketing and has taught at Boston and Suffolk Universities; he now runs his own consulting business. Ray Magliozzi is still at the Good News Garage. He has taught adult education automotive courses, worked for the Consumer Affairs Division of the state attorney general's office, and is a member of the National Car Care Council. The brothers also produce a highly successful newspaper column for King Features Syndicate, "Click and Clack Talk Cars," and an award-winning website, the Car Talk section of cars.com. Among Tom and Ray's books are In Our Humble Opinion and A Haircut in Horsetown and Other Great Car Talk Puzzlers, both published by Penguin Putnam.
Their most recent audio collections are "Born Not to Run: More Disrespectful Car Songs," "The Hatchback of Notre Dame: More Car Talk Classics," and "Car Talk Car Tunes: The Car Talk Compendium of Disrespectful Car Songs, Volume 1. " Car Talk is produced for NPR by Dewey, Cheetham & Howe and WBUR in Boston. Doug Berman is the Executive Producer.
On November 3 of 2014, Tom Magliozzi, one half of the wisecracking Car Talk duo known as "Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers," passed away from complications of Alzheimer's disease. He was 77.
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