According to Google, there are 72,000 registered vehicles in the Isle of Man and, according to what I see as I scoot about town on board ’Pullyman 1’, it strikes me that most of them are parked on the roadside.

Another very noticeable thing is that a good few of the on-streeters are very expensive pieces of kit to leave lying around.

There aren’t many bangers about these days. The days have gone when a young lad would salvage an old scrapper and spend a lot of time and not much cash on what would be his first car.

I well remember our first family car when we lived in Pully.

It was a black Ford Prefect of indeterminate age, with four doors, three gears, and a broken chassis. It had cost the head of the house about ten pounds to buy and, when we climbed in and went off on a family spin at the weekend, we thought that we were the whole cheese.

But before he could safely use his pride and joy to transport his family around the island, our leader first had to attend to the one big problem that was wrong with the car.

The broken chassis.

That had to be fixed as a matter of some urgency. After a great deal of thought, it was decided that we could jack the car up until it looked straight, and then drill and bolt steel plates to the chassis to hold it in that position. Simple.

Like many a good idea, it just didn’t work. When the jack was released, the car just sagged in the middle. Drastic problems require drastic solutions, so it was back to the drawing board. The jack was put back in place and the car was once again re-aligned. This re-alignment was checked and tested by simply opening and closing each door in turn.

When all the doors were opening and closing to the chief mechanic’s satisfaction, the driver’s door was simply welded shut. All breathing was held as the jack was removed, but the idea had worked. The car was straight.

Would you believe that the repair held for several years?

The only snag was that the driver had to climb in through the passenger door and slide across to the drivers seat.

On the subject of ’old bangers’ on the roads, I thought that I’d mention that it is now well over a year since I retired from driving and hung up my yellow string backed gloves and my car coat.

Do you remember ’car coats’?

Yes, can you believe it, a whole year since I stopped driving and, this is the scary bit, it’s 60 years since I passed my driving test.

I can tell you, I’ve seen a heck of a lot of changes in 60 years. I had learned to drive in the old Prefect, but we had decided that it was a step too far to expect the examiner to overlook the fact that our old four door saloon car was one door short of legal.

But back to that figure of 72,000 registered vehicles on our roads.

I know that figure will include everything from a bus to a bin lorry, but there is no doubt that our roads are becoming choked with cars.

The car showrooms gleam and shine, and the brand new four wheeled must-haves shout ’come and buy me’.

The temptation is hard to resist and the dealers and manufacturers have a finance package to suit everyone. Temptation can be a terrible thing.

During our family flirtations with various vehicles, we have owned just one brand new car.

It was a black, shiny Honda Civic, a car to be admired and to be proud of. But, as they say, pride comes before a fall.

It only took me four weeks to reverse into a huge lamp-post in the middle of Shoprite car park. And, within the time that we owned that car, we had successfully wrecked, one by one, all four corners.

A lesson learned or, as my inner voice said with a smile, ’nobody likes a show off’. And, when I think about it, we had more fun out of that old £10 Ford Prefect.

A decade ago Pullyman - aka Michael Cowin - was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, a condition that affects people in different ways. Michael discovered writing and Island Life is featuring some of his musings. Sometimes topical, sometimes nostalgic, read about life as seen through the eyes of Pullyman