People - Car Talk

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iunkyord, no motter how well you toke core of it " soys Tom, right, next to Roy.
he voice isn't speaking in the hushed.
chamber-music tones lamiliar to National Public Radio listeners. "Though
your relatives wouldn't approve, you are
in fact listening to us, Click and Clack,
the Tappet Brothers," the voice cackles
happily over the airwaves. "Don't touch
that dial oryour dipstickwill fall out!" A
chorus of ha-ha-has follows, then the
strains of hoedown banjo music.
That's Car Talkyou're listening to, National Public Radio's callin show for auto
owners in need of advice, sympathy or
Photogrophs by Richard Howord
simply a laugh. The Tappet Brothers-in
real life, Tom and Ray Magliozzi-will
supply all three during the hour to come.
In a weekly program reaching an estimated I million listeners, Tom,52, and Ray,
40, fleld questions dealing with everything from engine noise to bumper rust.
There is no script; every line is off-thecuff, and many are off-the-wall. Almost
all are right on target.
A woman named Joanne phones about
a Pontiac that makes a roaring noise. She
had taken the car to several mechanics,
but they couldn't find the problem.
Ray: "I'm gonna make the noise for
you. Woooooooo."
Joanne says thal's the noise.
Ray: "It's a bad front-wheel bearing.
But let's not assume it's in the front.
Noises can fool you. It can easily be the
rear-wheel bearing as well."
A woman named Bertha complains
about a year-old Toyota "with a lot of
noise coming from the back."
Tom: "You got any kids?"
"No, not that small," says Bertha.
Tom, on mike with Roy, quips,
"We tell cor componies they con'f
ii sue us becquse we're unsuiloble."
'.
"What about your neighbors?
Are any of them missing kids?"
Tom persists. Ray: "You should replace the tires. And you may discover you miss the noise. Don't
throw those old tires away."
When WBUR-FM, National
Public Radio's Boston outlet, invit-
ed several local mechanics to an onair panel discussion about car reDespite their lube-pit humor
pairs in l976,Tom Magliozziwas
and street-cabbie manner, the
the only one who showed up. His
brothers Magliozzi (pronounced
straight answers and quick humor
Maliotzee) aren't ordinary grease
earned him a second invitation, and
monkeys, and both pack rather sewhen he brought his brother along,
rious degrees from MlT. Sons of a
Car Talkwas born. After I I years as
businessman who owned a heata local radio fixture. the show went
ing-oil firm, they got interested in
;: Roy ond Tom, with mechonic Howie Tornower, right, national in 1987 as part of NPR's
cars while growing up in East
do some diognosing ot fie Good News Goroge.
weekend Edition, then later that
Cambridge, Mass. Ray liked to
same year was glven its own tlme
pester his older brother as Tom
slot and offered to National Public
tinkered and fiddled with the countless
ing his own MIT diploma in the humanRadio's over 300 member stations. More
jalopies he bought. "He was always reities and science before beginning a onethan 200 accepted.
building them out in front of the house,"
year teaching stint at a Vermont junior
The hosts decided "very early on that
says Ray. "I'd always be saying,'Why
high school. By 1973 he, too, wanted a
we didn't want the show to be for motorare you doin'that?'So I learned, and we
change and moved back to Cambridge,
heads, the people who read Car and Driver
learned together."
where he joined up with Tom in an autoin the bathroom," says Ray. They prize
Tom eventually attended MIT on
repair business.
utility over pizzazz, admil to a prejudice
scholarship, graduating in 1958 with deThey founded Hacker's Heaven, a
in favor of big American cars ("Imperial
grees in chemical engineering and ecoplace where do-it-yourselfers could pay
Star Cruisers") and often look beyond the
nomics. He spent l2 years with a compaby the hour to use the shop's tools and
tool rack for answers. When a caller
ny that made instruments for chemical
equipment. Two years later Hacker's
named Jack insists he needs a four-wheelplants, but he wearied of life behind a
Heaven evolved into a full-service repair
drive vehicle for an upcoming highway
desk and quit. Ray, meanwhile, was earnshop renamed the Good News Garage.
trip-and rejects the idea of renting one
quickly spots the problem. ooWhen
40th birthday?" he asks, laugh-
-Tom
was your
ing. "Two years ago?"
Jack:
"Four."
Tom: "Youove got a lot of suppressed
desires, so I guess you've got to do it. For
you, get the biggest oneyou can find."
Later, when the call is done, Jack marvels at the brothers' wisdom. "They're
very perceptive," he says. "They knew
they were talking to someone in the
throes of a mid-life crisis."
Such praise hasn't changed the Magliozzis or their tastes. Tom proudly tools
around tn a'74 Chevy convertible whose
top seldom works and whose radio never
plays. Ray drives an'87 Dodge pickup.
"People shouldn't take their cars so seriously," he says. "It's not brain surgery."
There are, of course. exceptions.
When a caller tells the brothers about
overinflating his tires to stop their
squeal, their voices turn somber. "This
is serious, this is no joke," Tom tells the
caller. "Don't be a fathead. Don't be a
6
cheapskate. You're gonna get killed."
These days, Ray runs the garage with
the help of four mechanics, Tom having
left the business in 1980 to return to academia. The latter has since accumulated
two M.B.A.s and a Ph.D. in marketing, a
subject he teaches twice a week at Boston
University. Both live in modest suburban
homes outside Boston, Tom with his
second wife, Jo-
anne, and two children (he has a
grown daughter
from an earlier
marriage), Ray
with his wife, Monique, and their
two kids. In their
off-hours, the
Communications building to start flelding calls and answering mail. They already receive 750 letters each week, and
the pile is growing. Car Talk "is the most
popular new program we've added in the
past year or two," says Ken Davis, program director of WBEZ in Chicago. Says
Mike Flaster, program director of KPBS
in San Diego:
The Magliozzfs'show "is the
most popular new program
weve added in the pastyear or
two,'o says one program
music station.
lButl they're literate and funny, sort
of Zen and the Art
of Motorcycle
Maintenancecomes
director.
brothers have been working on a layman's
car-repair book, due later this year. And
starting this month they'll put their advice
into a syndicated newspaper column.
Meanwhile, car owners who like to taik
about their troubles wait for Sundays,
when the brothers head for their tiny studio at Boston University's School of
"We're predominantly a classical
to radio."
Even for NPR's
highbrow listeners,
the mix has proved as potent as high-test
octane. Says Tom: "Some guy I met said
it's amazing how we use cars on our show
as an excuse to discuss everything in the
world---energy, psychology, behavior,
love, money, economics and finance. The
cars themselves are boring as hell."
-Amy
Schulman in Cambridge
With bonio ployer Ron Foccendcr, left, the brothers Mogliozzi tune up ol o living+oom iom session for Roy's wife, Monique.