In August 1959, Mr C. J. Wright a Wolverhampton businessman with garage and haulage interests, bought the stock, jigs, tools, fixtures and fittings, along with the rights to manufacture and the trade name of Frisky from the Official Receiver. He formed a new company Frisky Cars (1959) Ltd.
They recommenced production in January 1960 with the Frisky Family Three Mark 2 and a new model the Frisky Prince. Whilst the Mk2 addressed some of the shortcomings of the 1959 Mk 1Family Three the Prince was not a success and towards the end of the year, Mr Wright sold Frisky Cars (1959) Ltd to Mr R Bird of Petbow Ltd Sandwich Kent.
In January 1961 The Frisky moved to Petbow Ltd in Kent
Out of the blue, I received a phone call from Mark Lamerton, who at that time was an apprentice at Petbow, to let me know that the company were having a clear-out and that Frisky bodies were to be destroyed. He was doing his best to delay this as he was interested in restoring one of the Friskys himself. The one condition was, that we left him the "one with the Screen" This later turned out to be UUK421 the second of the FriskySport prototypes!
Gordon Higlett, Martin Keane and myself (with help from a couple of friends) visited Petbow. The Frisky Storage "area" was an ex prisoner of war camp consisting of Nissan type buildings set in what can only be described as a swamp!
Outside stacked against the hut walls were rows of Frisky Family Three Mk 2 body shells, nose down in the swamp with trees growing through them. Alongside them were the moulds and in the far corner, FriskySport body shells with no doors and right in the middle was the badly damaged buck for the original Gullwing Frisky that had been exhibited at the 1957 Geneva Motor Show (see prototypes section).
Only the shells in the hut were really moveable and we rescued as many as we could carry, and over the years these have been given away to help restore remaining Friskys.
(The site has long since been levelled and nothing remains)
In the early 1960s s some of the body shells and components went from Petbow to Frisky Spares and Services Ltd Queenborough,(Based in a boatyard) and in late 1960s Doug Smith (MD) and his son decided enough was enough and took the remaining ones down into Queenborough creek and had one hell of fire!
The end!
(Well almost! The Frisky Register has now managed to trace 75 surviving Friskys some of which have been restored including UUK 421 which was on display at the 2014 Classic Car Show at the NEC)
