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.

Tom Magliozzi says he spent two years "drinking coffee in Harvard Square" until he happened to start a do-it-yourself car repair shop with Ray. When local public radio station WBUR asked for mechanics to give advice on the air, Tom Magliozzi was the only one that showed up. The next week, he brought Ray along, and Car Talk was born.

At its peak, after moving onto NPR, Car Talk would get 30,000 calls a month, and the best ones would inevitably set the brothers off on a tangent, often involving marriage. Among Tom Magliozzi's more famous quotes: "Well, it sounds like a clear choice between a new wife and a new car. And frankly, since you’ve held tight to this piece of junk for over 130,000 miles, I'm a little worried about which way you're going to go."

Or the other famous bits of career advice: “Don’t be afraid of work. Make work afraid of you. I did such a fabulous job of making work afraid of me that it has avoided me my whole life so far.”

Since the brothers stopped taping new episodes two years ago, the show has been in carefully edited repeats on NPR stations. Berman said today that Ray Magliozzi hopes that continues as long as the stations make time for it, in part as a tribute to his brother.

Tom and Ray ended that MIT commencement address by having the entire graduting class chant "unencumbered by the thought process." For millions of listeners, the club Tom Magliozzi founded will never close its doors as long as they can hear him laughing from inside.