#2613: Plague-proofing Your Car
The Best of Car Talk
NPR
4.7 • 16.5K Ratings
🗓️ 14 February 2026
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rain is an aptly named woman from Florida who is currently battling at least two biblical plagues attempting to take over her Acura. Since Charlton Heston isn’t available to help, she called Clickus and Clackus the Chariotsmiths instead. Will miracles ensue? Find out on this episode of the Best of Car Talk.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | On Planet Money, we have covered a lot of topics. |
| 0:03.8 | Like just try searching something on the internet and adding Planet Money to the end of it. |
| 0:08.0 | Tariff prices, Planet Money, that's an episode. |
| 0:11.0 | Stop Sign War, Planet Money, that too. |
| 0:13.9 | Alaska Halibut Derby, Planet Money. |
| 0:16.4 | If you can ask it, we have probably answered it. |
| 0:19.4 | Planet Money. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 0:23.6 | Hello and welcome to Car Talk from National Public Radio with us, |
| 0:44.1 | Click and Clack, the Tappert Brothers. |
| 0:45.6 | We're broadcasting this week from the Enlightened Response Division here at Car Talk Plaza. |
| 0:50.1 | Now, you may be aware that we have been seeking nominations for the worst cars of the previous millennium. |
| 0:55.7 | And to kick off the nomination process a few weeks ago, we offered our own list of like 15 or 20 jalopies, most of which my brother has owned one time. |
| 1:04.8 | Yeah, I still own most of them. |
| 1:07.2 | And as we've come to expect when we do things like this, we received a number of vituportive responses from people defending one or more of these heaps on our list. |
| 1:17.0 | And most of them took the form of, hey, my Corvier didn't smell that bad or, hey, what do you mean unreliable? |
| 1:22.9 | My Vega started on three consecutive mornings one summer. |
| 1:26.4 | But we did get one particular defense, which was so thoughtful that we thought it was worth sharing. |
| 1:32.3 | And it comes from somebody named Bob Hamrick. |
| 1:35.3 | Yeah. |
| 1:36.3 | And he's responding to this statement made by us. |
| 1:38.3 | And I don't recall that I made the statement. |
| 1:40.3 | I believe these were your words exactly. |
... |
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