Tom Magliozzi

Thomas Louis Magliozzi (or 'Click') was born in 1936 and is the older brother (to Ray Magliozzi) of "Click and Clack, The Tappet Brothers", the hosts of National Public Radio's "Car Talk". Tom was born in East Cambridge, Massachusetts where he has lived - and plans to live - all of his life. He attended Gannett School, Wellington School, Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, and then the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (class of 1958) and Air Force ROTC, after which he spent six months in the Army Reserve in Fort Dix, New Jersey (India Company, Fourth Training Regiment).

Upon graduation, he worked for Sylvania's Semiconductor Division in Woburn, Massachusetts and then for the Foxboro Company while simultaneously earning his MBA from the Boston University Graduate School of Management 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, wasn't 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".

Besides 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. 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 now does the weekly "Car Talk" radio show with Ray, 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.

References

*Magliozzi, Tom and Ray. "In Our Humble Opinion: Car Talk's Click and Clack Rant and Rave". New York: Perigree Books, 2000.
* [http://alumweb.mit.edu/opendoor/200301/magliozzi.shtml MIT Alumni Interview] with Tom
* [http://www.cartalk.com/content/about/bios/tom-bio.html Tom's Biography at Cartalk.com] ("identical to chapter "Tom's Life Thus Far" in "In Our Humble Opinion: Car Talk's Click and Clack Rant and Rave") -- includes pictures
* [http://www.npr.org/about/people/bios/magliozzi.html NPR Biography of Tom and Ray Magliozzi]

External links

* [http://www.cartalk.com/ CarTalk.com] official site of the radio show
* [http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1999/clickclackspeech.html 1999 MIT Commencement Speech] , given by Tom and Ray Magliozzi