Tom Magliozzi

Thomas Louis Magliozzi (born 28 June 1937) is an American radio talk show host. He and his younger brother Ray Magliozzi, also known collectively as Click and Clack, The Tappet Brothers, are the hosts of National Public Radio's Car Talk.

Biography

Thomas Louis Magliozzi was born on June 28, 1937 in East Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he has lived - and plans to live - all of his life. He attended Gannett School, Wellington School, Rindge Tech, now known as Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, and then the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (class of 1958). While at MIT, he participated in the Air Force ROTC, and subsequently he spent six months in the Army Reserve in Fort Dix, New Jersey (India Company, Fourth Training Regiment).

Upon graduation from MIT, he worked for Sylvania's Semiconductor Division in Woburn, Massachusetts and then for the Foxboro Company while simultaneously earning his MBA from Northeastern University^[1] and teaching part-time at area universities. He eventually became sick of his commute (and job) and quit, spending the next year doing odd jobs such as painting for other tenants in his apartment building.

Tom's brother Ray left his job in Vermont in 1973 and came to Cambridge, at which point the two opened a do-it-yourself repair shop, named Hacker's Haven. The shop, which rented space and equipment to "hackers" trying to fix their own cars, was not profitable, but the two had fun and were invited in 1977 to be part of a panel of automotive experts on Boston's NPR affiliate WBUR. Only Tom showed up, and took over the show. Meanwhile, the shop turned into a standard auto-repair shop named Good News Garage.

In addition to the radio show, Tom also worked a day or two per week at the Technology Consulting Group in Boston, run by a former MIT classmate, and still taught at local universities. Tom felt that college professors made lots of money without working, so he spent nine years working while getting his doctorate in Marketing from Boston University Graduate School of Management.^[1] After being a professor for eight years he decided he disliked teaching and quit.

In January 1987, then-host Susan Stamberg of Weekend Edition on NPR asked the two to contribute weekly to her program. Nine months later, Car Talk premiered as an independent NPR program. Tom and his brother Ray continue to host the weekly Car Talk radio show. In 1992, Tom and Ray won a Peabody Award for Car Talk — for "distinguished achievement and meritorious public service".^[2][3]

In addition to the radio show, Tom writes for CarTalk.com, and runs his own consulting business. Tom also appeared in the Pixar film Cars with his brother Ray. They played the Rust-eze owners who discovered Lightning McQueen and gave him his first big break. Tom appeared as a 1963 Dodge Dart convertible. This was an in-joke, as Tom owned a '63 Dart convertible for many years and often mentioned it on Car Talk. Tom and his brother also appeared once in the PBS Kids show Arthur. Arthur had called them with a question about the family car, which, without his help would have been hauled away by the local mechanic. The answer turns out to be a baby rattle, presumably that of Arthur's baby sister Kate, in the car's tailpipe.

Tom stars with Ray in the PBS animated series, Click & Clack's As The Wrench Turns, based on Car Talk.

Like his brother, Tom is colorblind.

Notes

References

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (May 2008)

• Bates, Betsy (June 2, 1999). "Magliozzis have local roots, cool cars and colorful résumés". MIT Tech Talk 43 (32). http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1999/profile-0602.html. Retrieved 14 February 2009. 

• Magliozzi, Tom and Ray (2000). In Our Humble Opinion: Car Talk's Click and Clack Rant and Rave. New York: Perigree Books. 

• Magliozzi, Tom. Interview. MIT Alumni Interview with Tom Magliozzi '58. January/February 2003.
• "Tom's Biography". CarTalk.com. http://www.cartalk.com/content/about/bios/tom-bio.html.  (Includes pictures; Identical to chapter "Tom's Life Thus Far" in "In Our Humble Opinion: Car Talk's Click and Clack Rant and Rave")
• "NPR Biography of Tom and Ray Magliozzi". NPR. http://www.npr.org/about/people/bios/magliozzi.html. 

External links

• "CarTalk.com". http://www.cartalk.com/.  Official site of the radio show
• Magliozzi, Tom and Ray. "1999 MIT Commencement Speech". http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1999/clickclackspeech.html.