Plymouth's first car

It's hard to imagine today, with the endless stream of traffic, that Plymouth once only had one car. Dr Francis Pearse, who was a dental surgeon, was the first person to own a car in the town. The car was a German Benz which dated from around 1896. Pearse drove it for many years until it became outdated in the 1930s. He objected to having to pay £2 10 shillings a year in rates to garage the car so threatened to bury it.
Newspapers around the world picked up on the story and one, the Barrier Miner Newspaper, published in Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia in 1931, read:

FIRST TO RUN IN THE STREETS OF PLYMOUTH
London, March 15.

Sooner than pay rates on a car shed, Dr Francis Pearse of Plymouth, decided to bury a famous old 4½-horse-power motor car. Dr Pearse bought the car in 1900. It was the first to be run in the streets of Plymouth, where it has since been a familiar sight at pageants and processions. It participated in the London to Brighton old crocks' race in 1926. Dr Pearse then spent £20 to win a 2/6 bet that the car would complete the distance. Dr Pearse offered the car to the Plymouth Museum which refused it. Unable to find a purchaser,he arranged to bury the vehicle near the cemetery, saying that he had only kept it out of sentiment, and therefore burial was the decent thing.

A later story reported that he had carried out his threat and the car had been broken up.

The Winsconsin State Journal of 3rd August 1931 read:

MAN BURIES CAR 30 YEARS OLD

Rather than pay taxes on the 'garage' where he had kept his thirty-year-old automobile, Dr Francis Pearse of Plymouth, England, has buried it. He drove it reverently through the city to the burial ground near the cemetery and had it broken up and interred. Dr Pearse bought the car in 1900 and had driven it until three years ago. He had paid no taxes on the old shed where he kept it but this year it was classed as a garage.

Somehow, the car ended up at the Brooklands racing circuit and the photo shows the doctor driving it to Friary Station so that it could be transported there by train. The story is told that he did indeed bury the car but it was later exhumed when a local motor dealer persuaded him to send it to Brooklands.
Another early car belonged to Marshall Ware who lived at the Kloof in Saltash Passage. At the time, it was the only car in the area and small boys would chase after it as it drove over the cobbles towards the Saltash Ferry which, back then, was only used by foot passengers and horses and carts.
The first garage in Plymouth for repairing motor vehicles was the Mannamead Garage in Elm Road. In 1901, it repaired its first 'horseless carriage' which, perhaps, was the one belonging to Doctor Pearse.

 Traffic has continued to grow steadily over the years. Nowadays, even the traffic of the 1960s seems minimal compared to today's busy roads.
Today, there are so many vehicles on the road that they're almost impossible to count. It's hard to imagine a far quieter time when the sight of a car would draw a crowd and would have young boys running after it chasing it down the road.