It’s hard to say which one has the more grating laugh, a facet of their weekly show that has my wife wanting to vote Republican just so NPR can finally get defunded. Regardless, the Magliozzi brothers – older and less skilled at marriage Tom, and balder and color blind (seriously, go look it up) Ray  – have been providing sometimes helpful and always entertaining automotive service advice for decades.

But now they’re retiring, and that’s a problem. You see, NPR listeners may know how to make their mornings eclectic, and they are perhaps able to consider all things, but the one thing they can’t seem to manage – being left-leaning tree-huggers in Birkenstocks – is how to maintain their cars. For more than 3 decades Tom and Ray have provided a valuable service by dispensed automotive advice, advocated cars that have too few horses to kill you or be the least bit interesting to drive, and shamelessly flirted with the lady callers. It’s just their way.

And now that era of guffaws and sage advice is coming to a close. Or is it?  You see, if the PBS series This Old House has taught us anything, it’s that a show supported by audience tithing does not live by its host alone. That means that Car Talk, the Tappet Brothers’ long running radio advice column, could conceivably continue, just with someone else behind the mikes. To that end, who do you think would be the best choice to replace Click and Clack? Whoever it is would have to maintain some semblance of  their irreverent behavior and lack of knowledge about whatever the caller’s problem is. Who do you think should be the next Car Talk hosts?

Image: [Boston.com]