Photo via Richard Howard/Car Talk.

Tom Magliozzi, the longtime co-host Car Talk, died today of complications from Alzheimer’s disease, NPR reports. He was 77 years old.

Anyone that ever listened to public radio between the late ’80s and 2012 undoubtedly knows Magliozzi—or at least his laugh. That high-pitched, loud, hyena-like cackle that became something of trademark for him. Of course, that’s just one of countless defining features that mad Magliozzi such a legendary figure in the world of public radio.

Along with his brother, Ray, Magliozzi co-hosted the wildly popular radio show out of Boston’s WBUR about the world of automobiles from 1977 to 2012, when they both retired. The Magliozzi brothers grew up in East Cambridge, Mass. and came into the world of radio by accident. Prior to that, Tom working as an engineer when he had an “epiphany” that eventually led to his long, adored tenure in public radio and the world of cars. From NPR:

He was on his way to work when he had a near-fatal accident with a tractor-trailer. He pulled off the road and decided to do something different with his life.

“I quit my job,” he said. “I became a bum. I spent two years sitting in Harvard Square drinking coffee. I invented the concept of the do-it-yourself auto repair shop, and I met my lovely wife.”

Well, he wasn’t exactly a bum; he worked as a consultant and college professor, eventually getting a doctoral degree in marketing. And Tom and Ray Magliozzi did open that do-it-yourself repair shop in the early ’70s. They called it Hackers Heaven. Later they opened a more traditional car repair shop called the Good News Garage.

After the Tom and Ray opened their garage, they fell into radio when their local public radio station, WBUR, asked Tom to be a part of a car mechanic panel for a show. He was asked back on the show the following week, and brought Ray along with him. And the duo made a habit of appearing on public radio, eventually starting Car Talk, which became nationally syndicated in 1987 and earned them the nicknames “Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers.”

Though Car Talk ended in 2012, NPR still regularly airs old shows from the archives. Longtime Car Talk producer Doug Berman tells NPR that “Ray would like to continue doing that, as a tribute to his brother.”