My car with early style JP for 911/912 (15X5,5") and early style JP for VW on a car with unknown owner (Photo Tobias Lindbäck)

The company JP-wheels was started by a Swede with the name of Jack Possnert. During the 60's he lived in California and got introduced to light alloy wheels. He thought custom wheels would make a great business potential also in Sweden. In 1966 he got back to Sweden and started making cast aluminum wheels at his fathers foundry called Tunaverken in Eskilstuna. They were marketed under the name JP, taken from his initials.

This somewhat un-sharp picture shows early style four- and five-spoke wheels in the shop window of Ronwill Speedshop in Stockholm, Sweden. (Colorod nr 1, 1970)

The wheels got very popular and were made for several type of cars, BMW, Volvo, Chevrolet etc. But here I will concentrate on the four- and five-spoke versions for VW 4/130 and Porsche 5/130.

There exist at least two styles of the wheels. The early with more rounded spokes and outer rims, and the later with flatter spokes and almost square outer rims. The later are also made in a harder alloy, which is quite obvious when you try to polish them. The early ones is probably made of a very pure aluminum.

Later style 14X6" 4-spoke JP's on a then new 1969 beetle. This car, then owned by Fredrik Cederlund, had a 1900cc engine with SPG roller crank, 308 degree cam and dual 32mm Zenith carbs. (Colorod nr 1, 1970)

JP also made a slotmag wheel for VW that was very popular in the 70's. It was quite flat and, frankly, quite ugly. Another wheel was a special wheel for trikes using VW 4/130 pattern. The wheel is similar to the Halibrand mag-wheels and were made in the dimension 13X10" (correct me if I am wrong).

I have run JP 5-spoke wheels on VW's since 1989. It all started when I bought a 1960 looker. One of the reasons I bought it was that it had Porsche 356B brakes and some funky mag-wheels I hadn't seen before. It should later turn out to be two early style and two later style 15X5,5" JP wheels for Porsche 5/130 pattern.

The car from which I took the wheels. It was built with flared fenders etc. in the early 70's and was turned in to a looker in 1986. Today only the pan exist. (Photo Tobias Lindbäck)

I ran the car for one summer and before I sold it I removed brakes, wheels, camber compensator, 356 shifter and the BMW rev counter. All of those parts were used in my 1956 looker I was then building.

In 1991 I bought a 67 fastback and in that garage I saw two NOS early style JP wheels with unknown lug pattern. One year later I realized that it might be a good idea to check if they had Porsche lug pattern. I called the guy and asked if he still had the wheels. He still had them, and after some measuring I found that they actually were for 911/912! 75 bucks later they were mine. I sold one of my later styles to Peter Servais and used the other as a spare wheel.

Peter Servais has powder coated his later style JP's with Porsche 5/130 pattern. He also uses JP's on his slicks and as a spare wheel. (Photo Tobias Lindbäck)

It is just recently that the JP-wheels from the 60's and 70's has got any recognition. There are still some of the later style around in Sweden, but the early style wheels has become very rare.

/Tobias Lindbäck

If anyone knows more about JP's history, please e-mail me!