Tom Magliozzi was an MIT-trained engineer who found a better life as a mechanic - and talk show host. Photo courtesy of Car Talk.

What is Click without Clack? Or is it the other way around? Along with his brother Ray, Tom Magliozzi proved that even folks who saw cars as little more than basic transportation could enjoy talking – and listening – about the subject through the long-popular NPR program, Car Talk.

Two years after ending original broadcasts of the long-running series, Tom Magliozzi has passed away from complications related to Alzheimer’s Disease. He was 77.

Part of a close-knit Italian family from a working class Boston neighborhood, Magliozzi and his younger brother seemed like just a bunch of regular guys. And, in many ways they were. They both just happened to graduate from the local college, MIT.

The older brother might have spent his life working as an engineer if not for what he described as an epiphany after a near-fatal collision with a semi-truck back in the 1970s.

“I quit my job,” he told MIT graduates during a 1999 commencement speech. “I became a bum. I spent two years sitting in Harvard Square drinking coffee. I invented the concept of the do-it-yourself auto repair shop, and I met my lovely wife.”

Brothers Ray and Tom, 12 years his senior, had a special relationship that won over fans.

The shop might have been where he and Ray, 12 years his junior, spent the rest of their working careers if epiphany hadn’t been followed by serendipity. Ray got a call from the local public radio station, WBUR, looking to put together a panel of mechanics for a talk show. It was Tom who actually went over, and with a great sense of humor and what can only be described as an infectious laugh, he was asked back.

“Before I ever met him, I heard him, and it wasn’t on the air,” recalled Doug Berman, then the news director at the NPR affiliate – who later became their producer when WBUR decided to wrap a program around the two brothers in 1977. A decade later, it began to be offered by the network as an option other local affiliates could pick up.

There are dozens of local, and even a few national, car-based programs filling up time on various talk networks around the country. The idea of adding one to the line-up of NPR, not a network normally associated with a seemingly low-brow concept, was a surprise to many of its listeners.

But as folks began to tune in, they quickly got hooked. “Car Talk was the first NPR show I fell in love with, and it helped instill in me an interest in automotives that lives today,” tweeted listener Thomas Kyle-Milward, after learning of Magliozzi’s passing.

“Click has lost his Clack,” added NPR’s Arnie Seipel.

Tom and Ray Magliozzi in earlier years at their Good News Garage in "our fair city" of Cambridge, Mass.

Some car shows either take the serious road when discussing subjects automotive. Others go for low-brow hijinks. The two brothers tried to strike a middle ground. They offered insight into a subject that impacted virtually every American, even those that hate cars. There were reasonably good tips for listeners who called in to ask about how to keep an old car running. But there were gags, and the weekly puzzlers. And there was Tom Magliozzi’s manic laugh, often triggered by the good-natured jibing between two close siblings.

In an interview with NPR following the announcement of Magliozzi’s death, producer Berman said the brothers really were good mechanics, though that wasn’t really the foundation of their success. “I think it has very little to do with cars,” he explained. “It’s the guys’ personalities. And Tom especially — really a genius. With a great, facile mind. And he’s mischievous. He likes to prod people into honesty.”

The brothers unexpectedly announced their decision to retire in 2012, apparently due to Tom Magliozzi’s illness. The program has continued to air nationally as a collage of “best-of” moments from the previous third of a century.

Ray Magliozzi says he hopes that will continue as a tribute to his brother. Considering the continuing popularity of Click – or was it Clack, the Tappet Brothers are likely to remain an NPR fixture long after Tom Magliozzi’s passing.