Community Corner
"Car Talk" Putting on Brakes
After 25 years, the chatty pair of mechanic brothers from Boston are calling it quits
Sad news out of Boston today: Tom and Ray Magliozzi, better known as the Saturday morning radio mechanics on NPR's "Car Talk," are calling it quits, the Associated Press reports.
The show will continue to air in reruns, but after 25 years of giving at once useful and hilarious advice on car maintenance to callers with every manner of malfunction, no new episodes will be produced. Older brother Tom is 74 years old, while Ray is 63.
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The show was first broadcast on WBUR in Boston in 1977. It's now the most popular program on NPR and is heard coast-to-coast. The show is heard locally at 10 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday on WAMU, 88.5 FM.
"As of October they will no longer be recording new shows," explained Benae Mosby, Communications Manager for WAMU.
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Mosby said that while new recordings will cease in October, NPR will continue to offer its member stations the Car Talk program.
NPR plans to "repackage" old content into new broadcasts and to distribute those to local stations, she explained.
Mosby was not certain how many those of those repackaged broadcasts would be produced or if there would eventually be a space in WAMU's schedule.
"It's not going away completely," said Mosby. At least, not for now.
