Tom earned a degree from the
MIT Sloan School of Management. He worked for
Sylvania's Semiconductor Division in
Woburn, Massachusetts and then for the Foxboro Company while earning his MBA from
Northeastern University and teaching part-time at local universities. He grew tired of his job and quit, spending the next year doing odd jobs such as painting for other tenants in his apartment building. The shop rented space and equipment to people who were trying to fix their own cars, but it was not profitable. Nevertheless, the two enjoyed the experience and were invited in 1977 to be part of a panel of automotive experts on Boston's National Public Radio affiliate
WBUR-FM. Subsequently, the brothers converted the shop into a standard auto repair shop named the Good News Garage. In addition to the local radio show, Tom worked a day or two each week at Technology Consulting Group started by Mike Brose, a former MIT classmate in Boston, and he still taught at local universities. Tom spent nine years working on the side while getting his doctorate in marketing from
Boston University School of Management. After being a lightly paid professor at Boston University and
Suffolk University for eight years, he decided he disliked teaching and quit.
Car Talk In January 1987,
Susan Stamberg of
Weekend Edition on NPR asked the two brothers to contribute weekly to her program. Nine months later,
Car Talk premiered as an independent NPR program. In 1992, Tom and Ray won a
Peabody Award for
Car Talk for "distinguished achievement and meritorious public service". Tom and Ray continued to work in their repair garage while they produced
Car Talk. On June 8, 2012, it was announced that
Car Talk would stop producing new episodes in September 2012, though NPR would continue airing reruns of the show. Producer Doug Berman said that Tom and Ray "changed public broadcasting forever" because the brothers "showed that real people are far more interesting than canned radio announcers." "The guys are culturally right up there with
Mark Twain and the
Marx Brothers."
Other work In addition to the radio show, Tom wrote for CarTalk.com and ran his own consulting business. In 1999, the brothers returned to MIT to deliver a joint commencement speech to the graduates. In 1989, the brothers started a newspaper column
Click and Clack Talk Cars which, like the radio show, mixed serious advice with humor.
King Features distributes the column. Ray continued to write the column, retitled
Car Talk, after his brother's death in 2014, knowing he would have wanted the advice and humor to continue. Tom and Ray both appeared in the
Pixar films
Cars (2006) and
Cars 3 (2017). (Tom's role in the third film was accomplished through archival recordings, as it was produced after his death, while Ray reprised his role despite his retirement in 2012.) They played the owners of Rust-eze who discovered Lightning McQueen and gave him his first big break. Tom appeared as a 1963
Dodge Dart convertible, a reference to a car that he owned for many years and often mentioned on
Car Talk. Ray appeared as a 1964
Dodge A100 van. In both films, they admonished: "Don't drive like my brother", the catchphrase from the close of their radio show. The brothers also appeared in the sitcom
Sabrina the Teenage Witch in an episode called "Driving Mr. Goodman" which aired on May 3, 2002. Sabrina calls them on a magical car radio for car advice. In the same year they appeared in the
PBS Kids show
Arthur episode called "Pick a Car, Any Car" which aired on November 25, 2002. Arthur calls them with a question about the family car, which would have been hauled away by the local mechanic without their help. The answer turns out to be a baby rattle lodged in the car's tailpipe. In 2008, the brothers starred in their own PBS animated series ''
Click and Clack's As the Wrench Turns, playing fictionalized versions of themselves. They also hosted an episode of the PBS show NOVA entitled "The Car of the Future". Ray did radio and T.V. advertisements for eBay Motors in 2022 and voiced the Father of the Bride in the animated short film The Ten Commandments of Banquet Serving'' in 2023. ==Filmography==