Car Talk's Tom Magliozzi dies at 77, but the show will roll on

Non Impediti Ratione Cogitationis  sounds like the type of Latin phrase you'd see on the seal of a Harvard Square club. And it is — except it means "unencumbered by the thought process," the answer given by Tom Magliozzi over the years as to how he and his brother Ray could Click and Clack into answers so quickly every Saturday on National Public Radio's "Car Talk."

Such was the life's work of Tom Magliozzi, who died today at 77 years old due to complications from Alzheimer's. A graduate of MIT and a college professor, Magliozzi will forever be remembered for the shade-tree wisdom shared with a cackle behind one-liners such as "“How do you know if you've got a good mechanic? By the size of his boat.”

"Tom was the most buoyant, engaging, brilliant, and funny person I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with," said Doug Berman, the show's longtime executive producer. "The legacy he and his brother leave us, Car Talk, has changed radio broadcasting, and has had a life-altering effect on millions and millions of listeners over several generations—many who have never met Tom, but feel like he’s a close friend."

How a pair of Italian brothers with a Massachusetts accent as thick as Bahwston beans became two of America's favorite radio stars is one of those great accidents of life. As he told the MIT graduating class of 1999, Tom Magliozzi had been working as an engineer in the early 1960s after graduation when he avoided a collision with a semi truck in his MGA.

"And as I continued my drive, I said to myself, if I had in fact bought the farm out there on Route 128, how ticked off would I be that I spent all my life — that I can remember at least — going to this job, living a life of quiet desperation," Magliozzi said. "So, I pulled into the parking lot, walked into my boss's office and I quit, on the spot."

"See, now most people would have just bought a bigger car," replied Ray.