Any knowlededgeable motorcycle enthusiast will tell you WP is a Dutch suspension manufacturer. That was true once, but in the nearly for decades since the firm was established, it has become more. Much more, as I discovered during a factory tour.
WP was founded in 1977 by Wim Peters, whose initials purportedly gave the company its name. That's only part of the story, however, because for many years WP went by White Power. This made sense for two reasons: First, the company's spring vendor manufactured hospital beds, so the only paint color it had was white. And second, throughout the '80s and '90s the US importer was White Brothers. At some point, however, someone realized that “White Power” had certain rasist implications, so the name was changed to WP.
In 1999, KTM acuired WP, but it wasn't until a decade later that manufacturing was moved to a huge new factory in Munderfing, Austria, a few kilometers from KTM headquarters in Mattighofen. (The original WP facility in the Netherlands is now used solely for race support.) The following year KTM became a subsidiary of WP, and two years after that the firm took over production of KTM's frames and exhaust systems.