http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...l#ixzz3I4x6VbHf

The ONLY reason I ever listened to NPR. I always loved that when anyone called in with a question about a Camaro, they referred to them as "Donna from South Jersey"....

Zitat

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Tom Magliozzi, who hosted National Public Radio's beloved Car Talk show with his brother, has died from Alzheimer's Disease aged 77.

The on-air personality, who ran the call-in show with his younger brother Ray from 1977 to 2012, died today from complications related to the brain disease today, NPR confirmed.

In his 35-year radio career, the network said his 'dominant, positive personality' had helped inject a lightheartedness into an arena which was 'formal' and 'cautious' before.

Car Talk was NPR's most popular entertainment program for years, reaching more than 4million people a week on more than 600 radio stations across the country at its peak.

It continued to be a top-rated show even after the brothers stopped taping live shows in 2012 and the network began airing reruns and archived materials.

Car Talk Executive Producer Doug Berman, in a statement posted on NPR's website, said Magliozzi's 'dominant, positive personality' will be missed. 'He and his brother changed public broadcasting forever,' he said. 'Before Car Talk, NPR was formal, polite, cautious..even stiff.'

The duo, which called themselves 'Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers,' mixed sound advice about repairing cars with sharp one-liners, self-deprecating humor and off-topic digressions on philosophy and the mysteries of life.

'I like to drive with the windows open. I mean, before you know it, you're going to spend plenty of time sealed up in a box anyway, right?' Tom once quipped on-air.

The brothers always ended their shows with a catchphrase - 'Don't drive like my brother' - delivered in their signature Boston accents.

Ray Magliozzi affectionately teased his late brother, who was 12 years his senior, in a statement posted on Car Talk's website: 'Turns out he wasn't kidding...He really couldn't remember last week's puzzler.'

The Cambridge, Massachusetts, brothers were an unlikely radio duo. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduates opened a car repair shop in the early 1970s.

As the story goes, Tom was invited to a radio round-table discussion with other local auto mechanics on Boston's NPR affiliate, but was the only one to actually show up.

He impressed the station's producers, however, and was invited back the following week. Tom brought along Ray, and Car Talk was born.

The weekly Boston-produced program began airing in 1977 and became nationally-broadcast starting in 1987.

Magliozzi was born June 28, 1937, in a largely Italian-American section of East Cambridge. According to NPR, he was the first in his family to attend college, earning a chemical engineering degree.

Besides running a car repair business, Magliozzi worked at times as a consultant and college professor.

Magliozzi is survived by his first and second wives, three children, five grandchildren, and his close companion of recent years, Sylvia Soderberg.

In lieu of flowers, the family has requested fans make a donation in his memory to either their local NPR station or the Alzheimer's Association.

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