Green tooling around with the top down.

ONE OF THE “FAB 5”

Green knew his ’58 Friskysport was probably pretty rare, but didn’t really know how unusual it was until he began corresponding with John Meadows. So far, it’s one of only five such vehicles that have surfaced in the U.S. Since the entire production total for all years of the Frisky brand was probably only somewhere in the neighborhood of 750, any of them are rare orphans these days.
“They actually built these cars for the U.S. market before they built them for their own market — to make money,” Green says. “This is one of the early ones they built … It has the turn signals on the side of the car, behind the doors … This one actually came with clear plexi material (windows}, and they just slid down into two posts, where the ones in England actually have two Plexiglas sliders. And that tail section there will unbolt from the rest of the body. This one was actually made in two pieces, where most of the others are a single solid body. That’s what my 1960 is, a solid body.”
Green faced plenty of challenges finding and/or building all the parts he needed to do the repairing and restoring that his car needed to keep it on the road. Fortunately, he’s a pretty resourceful guy and he’s met plenty of like-minded fellow enthusiasts during his micro-car endeavors.
“I know where all 35 of [the Friskys] are in the United States,” he jokes. “I pretty much know where all the Sports are. I work in a machine shop and I made parts and helped other people get their cars back on the road, and in return they helped me get mine on the road."
“For example, the brakes are Morris Minor. You can’t buy the brake products. But the Morris Minor brakes will work. You can still get tail lights. They are not the right ones, but you can get the lenses. And just the rubber parts you can’t get, because nobody makes them. So I fabricated some molds and found people that would actually make them for me.”
Green has been able to keep the original two-cylinder power plant rolling all these years — “18 British horsepower! A lot of lawn mowers have more than that!” he jokes. Going for a spin, with or without a passenger to share the ultra-cozy front bench seat, is never short on adventure. Green actually reaches under and around his right leg to shift four-on-the-floor, and the top of his head reaches up above the windshield.
“The suspension is very rough. It’s got two shocks in the back. The front suspension, the best way to describe it is the old torsion [setup] like on a trailer, that’s basically what it is. When you hit the bakes on this car, instead of dropping, it will raise. That’s just the way it was designed,” he notes. “They say they’ll do 60 mph, but I won’t. Over [in England’ I drove in a road rally for 40 miles and it actually wasn’t bad."
“There’s not much else to them. I guess over there you could get a radio in it, but you couldn’t hear it anyway [laughs].”
A lot of people think the Friskysport is an Amphicar. A quick peek out back shows there is no prop.
If the profile of the car looks a little familiar, it definitely is a mini-doppelganger to a much more well known small machine, the Amphicar. “Yeah, a lot of people will think it’s an Amphicar. They’ll look around back and ask if I’m going to put a prop on it and I say, “[Darn], if fell off again!’”

Green’s car has some custom made hupcaps he says he picked up from a guy in Scotland.
“This would have had like baby moons,” he notes. Otherwise, there is not much on the car that has changed over the years. Green says eventually he plans to take the body off and do some work on the doors. “You can see the body gap between the doors and the front fender. That needs to be fiberglassed back up to support it. Over the years with the weight of the windshield has sort of drooped. My dad and I were going to do it, but he passed away … I just haven’t had the time. I’m not retired yet.”
Green says he has no other big plans for the tiny Meadows, other than taking it to shows so other car fans can see it and learn the car’s unique story, and taking it for occasional spins around town or just around the block. It’s almost a certainty that Green won’t be parting with the car anytime soon. It has become part of his identity and certainly given him some status in microcar circles — not to mention countless hours of enjoyment.
“It’s just a fun car,” he says. “Since it’s been in the family for so many years, it just has a special place. And my grandson has already claimed it.”
Mark Green with his Meadows Friskysport