I don’t care much for cars. But even though I’m ambivalent about automobiles, I’m incredibly passionate about the hilarious radio show Car Talk. Sadly, one half of the Car Talk brothers, Tom Magliozzi, died today at 77, which sent me searching for this they made in 2008 — the first time I saw “Click and Clack” in person.
Fans of the radio show are used to the Magliozzis wisecracking about busted fanbelts in ancient station wagons, but on this thoroughly entertaining episode of NOVA, the duo heads out of the studio to seriously survey the latest and greatest on the auto market horizon. The plot starts as almost a Car Talk segment in itself: Tom’s 1952 MG roadster is dying, and he wants to replace it with something fuel-efficient and forward-thinking. What should he buy? Since the documentary is from 2008, it’s also a fascinating look back at what we were expecting to be a reality by 2014… and how far we still are from some technological advances.
Car Talk hadn’t produced new episodes since 2012 but during its time on the air, the Magliozzis recorded a lifetime’s worth of shows — seriously, they’d been making Car Talk since 1977, my entire life. These will continue to be aired on NPR affiliates, at least for the foreseeable future. Luckily for all of us, car fans or not, the Magliozzis chirpy banter will live on forever in reruns — long outlasting any automobile they talked about. [NOVA]