THE PANEL PEOPLE
The Dansk name – and that of the parent company, JP Group – will be familiar to almost anyone whoʼs restored or rebuilt a Porsche of any vintage. And the chances are, if youʼve fitted a replacement exhaust system it will have come from Dansk (or SSI), too
Profile of the mighty JP Dansk operation in Denmark
W hilst JP Group a/s is very much a global business, the heart and soul of JP – the company behind the famous Dansk brand – is in Viborg in central Denmark where the business was started and the HQ and major warehouses and manufacturing plants are located. And, despite being a global operation, JP is very much a family business, and that personal attention and passion for the business and its products was very obvious when we visited.
Chances are that either you will have fitted (or had fitted to your Porsche) parts manufactured by or supplied via JP. However, any JP parts youʼre likely to have been in contact with will almost certainly have been supplied via its network of dealers. And although itʼs not possible to order direct as a private customer, JP does have a great website and a new webshop, which will not only help you locate exactly what youʼre after, but will also find your nearest JP supplier.
The company was founded by Johannes Pedersen (hence the ʻJPʼ branding) who began his working life as a bus driver. Then, in 1965, he started to dedicate all of his spare time to producing rubber products for cars, along with rubber hammers and ashtrays. This business provided Johannes with the finances required to invest in tools and machinery for the production of spare parts for his biggest interest: cars. Thatʼs how the business began – through pure passion.
Johannes Pedersen passed away in 1992 at the age of 63 and was succeeded by his son, Martin. Since then, JP Group has grown to become a well-established, and strongly consolidated, business with activities worldwide and premises totalling more than 42,000m2.
Martin Pedersen, the current CEO of JP Group Holding a/s, was born in Viborg in 1958 and has been running the company since taking over from his father, having started working at JP Group in 1983, only a few years after the establishment of the company.
Exhausts and the associated hardware have long been the companyʼs staple diet, however the supply of pattern parts for modern vehicles is the key area of business. That said, these guys are 100 per cent enthusiasts at heart, hence the ʻClassic Lineʼ range of products, specifically aimed at classic VAG, Porsche and some early Mercedes models. JP provides more than 6000 parts via the Classic Line range, and we were surprised to learn just how many products are