There are few things in this world more comforting than listening to people who care about each other goofing off, and that’s why I keep listening to The Best of Car Talk. Ray Magliozzi and his older brother Tom retired from Car Talk in 2012, 35 years after they first began hosting it on Boston public radio station WBUR and 25 years after NPR put it into national syndication. They left behind hundreds of hours of listeners’ calls about cars and car repair. In some ways, the show is genuinely about practical automotive advice, seasoned with generous heaps of running gags tied to the brothers’ distinct flavors of genially erudite wise-guy persona. (Ray, who’s still the face of the family business Good News Garage, comes across as the practical everyman. Tom, who sadly died of Alzheimer’s disease in 2014, plays the bullheaded, absent-minded professor to the hilt.) Of course, what the show is really about is navigating people’s complex relationships with each other and with their ever-more-mystifying cars — determining the relative importance of their loved ones’ odd habits or their car’s unusual noises. Most NPR stations stopped airing re-edited episodes in 2017, but a new one appears most Saturday mornings oncartalk.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Anytime I’ve got a stack of chores to do, or any other reason I need to vaporize a perfectly good hour, I’m eager to load one up. STEPHEN TRAGESER
Listen to The Best of Car Talk
