TheChek News Flow

Pop Mart’s Wang Ning, Mao Geping, Aranya’s Ma Yin and LVMH's Andrew Wu discussed building brands around emotion, culture and lasting value in today's China.

WUHAN — At the WWD x SKP Global Fashion & Beauty Summit, three generations of Chinese entrepreneurs shared how they offer emotion, culture and lasting value for fashion consumers in today’s China.

For Wang Ning, the man behind the global success of Labubu and Pop Mart, the takeaway was about how a small interest can grow into something much bigger.

The founder of the fast-expanding collectibles company described a path that began in the world of trends and expanded into fashion and, ultimately, a broader promise: the pursuit of beauty and happiness

The ambition, he said, is to create something that speaks to a simple human desire: one that can resonate beyond a particular category or market.

“Everyone wants beauty and happiness. Even when people grow up and face pressure and difficulties, inside they still want something simple and pure. They want companionship, and they want to feel comforted,” Wang said.

That idea is expressed in the company’s characters and symbols, including its small-crowned mascot, hailing from Molly, the first artist IP Wang signed with Hong Kong artist Kenny Wong in 2016.

Wang said Pop Mart’s task today is not only to sell a collectible but to preserve a sense of playfulness that people can carry into adult life. It is a different kind of fashion proposition. It’s less about dressing for a moment than about creating a world people want to enter.

Moderated by LVMH’s Greater China president Andrew Wu, who joined Pop Mart last year as a non-executive director, the discussion also touched on how China’s consumer market has changed.

Shoppers, Wu observed, are no longer satisfied with a brand simply being new, foreign or inexpensive. They want to know what it stands for and whether it offers an experience or feeling that matters to them.

That shift has helped reshape the opportunity for homegrown brands, including Mao Geping’s namesake beauty company.

A legendary figure in China, Mao’s career began as a makeup artist and teacher. He then saw a gap in the market: Chinese women were interested in makeup, but the dominant standards and products largely came from Western brands.

“I felt that Eastern beauty needed its own way of thinking. It should not be about making everyone look the same. It should help each Chinese woman discover what is distinctive about her own face and bring that out,” he said.

Mao began by establishing a makeup school and developing products that could support the techniques he taught. The company’s model has continued to link beauty products with education and professional service. Mao said its schools have trained makeup artists who can bring the brand’s approach directly to customers.

The brand’s development also reflects a wider rise in cultural confidence.

In 2018, Mao began working with the Palace Museum, drawing on traditional Chinese imagery and motifs for annual collections. The collaboration gave the brand a way to connect its products with a cultural history that consumers were increasingly eager to explore.

Still, Mao said, cultural references alone are not enough to build a lasting business. A brand needs a recognizable point of view and products that can stand on their own.

“Having your own characteristics is very important. You have to understand young people, but you also have to understand your own style. If you simply follow whatever is popular at the moment, you have no future. The classic and the new have to meet, and each has to learn from the other,” he added.

For Ma Yin, founder and chief executive officer of Aranya, the starting point was a very different kind of business: real estate. Meaning “forest” or “wilderness” in Sanskrit, Aranya is a pioneer of cultural and tourism real estate projects in China.

He entered the property sector with a conventional development mindset, but a project that could not be sold as planned forced him to reconsider what a residential development could be.

Looking back, Ma said, the setback became an early chance to change course. Instead of focusing only on buildings and their functions, he began thinking about what a place could offer emotionally and socially.

“Traditional development is often about building more, or making the house more expensive. But a home should offer something beyond the physical. It should meet people’s emotional needs and their need for a sense of meaning,” he said.

That idea helped shape Aranya, a coastal community in Qinhuangdao, two hours by train from Beijing, growing into a lifestyle destination, with cultural programming and shared spaces at its center.

For Ma, the project is also a response to the isolation of modern city life. People may live close to one another, he said, yet remain strangers to their neighbors.

“We have become very independent, very rational, and at the same time very lonely. If you can create a place where people connect, where they get to know one another and become familiar, you can begin to rebuild that sense of community,” he said.

Aranya’s cultural events are part of that effort, most notably hosting the Louis Vuitton men’s spring 2023 spin-off fashion show during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ma said the value of getting people away from the routines and noise of the city is so that art, music and theater can be experienced differently. The aim is not simply to build a resort or sell homes, but to create a setting where people can feel part of something.

The four also repeatedly touched on the idea that China’s fashion and lifestyle market is maturing. Consumers are more exposed to global brands and increasingly discerning about what they buy. That does not mean they are rejecting international products. Rather, they are choosing according to their own tastes, values and sense of identity.

Summing up the panel, Wu said the qualities that help businesses endure in China include a clear understanding of product, the ability to create experiences around it and the persistence to keep building through difficult periods.

The opportunity, he added, is not just to make something Chinese, or something fashionable, but to make something distinctive enough to matter to Chinese at home and abroad.

Carolina Cucinelli, the brand’s vice president and co-creative director, discussed craft, technology, family and the company’s plans in China.

WUHAN — For Carolina Cucinelli, taking a family business into the future means holding on to its values while finding new ways to bring them to life.

“The idea of humanism and, of course, economic unity is very important,” she said at the WWD x SKP Global Fashion & Beauty Summit in Wuhan, China, on Oct. 22. “The values are very important to create a great connection with our clients.”

The vice president and co-creative director of Brunello Cucinelli could only spend the morning in Wuhan for the summit, as she had to head to Shanghai for the opening of Casa Cucinelli that evening, right opposite Louis Vuitton’s boat-shaped slow pop-up The Louis on the bustling Nanjing West Road.

On stage, she spoke about a challenge facing any growing fashion house: expanding internationally without losing what makes it distinctive.

For Cucinelli, that starts with respect for people, the land and the communities around the business.

Casa Cucinelli in Shanghai is one way the company puts that idea into practice. It isn’t a conventional store, she said, but a private space where clients can spend time with the brand and get closer to its philosophy. There are 10 Casa spaces around the world.

“Casa is a private space dedicated to clients, dedicated to the essence of our brand. The idea when you join Casa is to really repeat the essence of our philosophy,” she said.

That connection to place starts at home in Solomeo, the small Italian village where Brunello Cucinelli has built its headquarters and production network. As the company grows, Cucinelli said, it wants to do so without losing its character.

“We try to create a kind of culture rooted in respect for people, respect for the land,” she said.

The same thinking carries through to the products. Across categories, the company focuses on design, quality materials, Italian production and colors inspired by the land. Even with something as different as wine, Cucinelli said, the aim is to respect the territory and support the local community.

The goal is to make clothes people will want to wear for years, perhaps even “forever.” That idea seems to resonate with shoppers who are becoming more thoughtful about what they buy.

“Chinese customers are very knowledgeable. They know well what luxury means now,” she said. “They prefer to buy less but buy better.” Younger customers, she added, want to feel close to a brand and understand what it stands for.

The company tries to make that connection real by inviting people in. After it went public in 2012, Cucinelli recalled, the company invited investors to Solomeo to see the business for themselves and hear about its values.

“We created a relationship with investors and had the chance to explain what our values are,” she said.

That personal touch is also shaping the company’s approach to digital. Work on its platforms began around 2017, with one site devoted to the company’s story and another focused on its products. The aim isn’t simply to sell online; it’s to make the experience feel personal and true to the brand.

The company has an in-house team focused on technology. As it explores artificial intelligence, Cucinelli said, the question is how to use it without losing sight of the people at the heart of the business.

“We started to understand what we can do to create, also in the digital moment, to put the human beings in the center,” she said.

That might mean tailoring the way the company tells its story or responds to a client’s questions. Even the digital interface, she said, is meant to feel more artisanal, with an artist involved in its design.

But technology has its limits. Cucinelli and her sister Camilla don’t use AI to design collections. Their design team travels to understand markets and spot new trends — experiences that, she said, can’t yet be replicated by artificial intelligence.

The company is also working to pass on the hands-on skills behind its products. In 2013, it established a school in Solomeo to train a new generation of artisans. About 60 students attend each year and receive a salary as they learn. Around 5 percent go on to work for the company; others find opportunities with its suppliers.

Students come from across Italy and sometimes from farther afield. The program covers different areas of the business, Cucinelli said, with a particular focus on craftsmanship and production. It’s a way to keep those skills alive while giving young people a reason to build a future in the area.

Cucinelli’s own path into the business began at a sewing machine. She wanted to become a tailor, studied the craft and joined the company at 19. Her father later encouraged her to explore other parts of the business, and every few years she moved into a new area, including marketing, communications and development.

“I’m very happy about that because I discovered so many parts that I love so much,” she said.

Working with family, she said, can be wonderful, but it takes work to find the right balance.

Her sister is a close partner, and the two share a vision for the company. Their father remains a mentor and a strong presence, while encouraging the next generation to think about what comes next.

Asked whether her own son might join the business one day, Cucinelli said she wants him to decide for himself.

“I want to give him the freedom to choose,” she said. What she hopes to pass on is the passion for the work, not a sense of obligation — just as her father did for her.

“He transmitted the passion and never the problem,” she said. “And it’s for that I’m here.”

Looking ahead, Cucinelli said, the challenge is to keep creating while staying true to the company’s values: to understand what is changing in the world and interpret it in the company’s own way.

Plus, Anthropic’s mind-boggling $40 trillion market opportunity, we tried Apple’s first touch-screen MacBook, Silicon Valley takes on the Pentagon’s explosives shortage and more

This is an edition of the WSJ Technology newsletter, a weekly digest of tech columns, big stories and personal tech advice. If you’re not subscribed, sign up here.

Who’s going to pay for the global AI build-out?

It’s a trickier question than it seemed just a few days ago. One answer has long been that hyperscalers such as Google and Meta could fund much of it out of their colossal profits.

Confidence in that scenario took a blow Wednesday when Google reported that its own AI offerings are bleeding growth from its cash-cow search ads, with monetization of AI-style queries still a work in progress. Google’s market capitalization shed $500 billion in the stock’s worst day ever, dragging down indexes that fell further as Intel and Amazon reported results that concerned investors.

Andreas Almgren, 31, pulled away from a large lead pack in the final miles to win his first and only marathon

A nation long known for producing champions in ice hockey, tennis and skiing (and, improbably, pole vault) now has another sport to add to its strengths: marathon running.

Andreas Almgren, a 31-year-old from Sweden who had never run a competitive marathon before Sunday, pulled away from a crowded field to win the New York City Marathon.

“It’s better than anything I could ever have imagined,” Almgren said.

Sheila Chepkirui of Kenya won the women’s race on Sunday for the second time. She also won in 2024.

Almgren finished the course, known for its long inclined bridges and sharp turns, in 2 hours, 6 minutes and 1 second—13 seconds ahead of Italian Yemaneberhan Crippa. Almgren’s time was the third-fastest in the course’s 50-year history. He was the first-ever NYC winner from Sweden.

Almgren ran with an unusually large lead pack of 15 men that held together past mile 21 before slowly picking off his competitors. He pulled away from his last challenger, Crippa, in the final mile.

Almgren said last week that he chose to run New York rather than flatter, faster courses in Chicago or Valencia because he wanted a true race rather than a time trial.

“I don’t really have experience knowing what time I should target,” Almgren said. “I just think that New York is a better fit for me where I’m at, at this moment. I can just follow the front pack and then hopefully be strong in the end.”

Although it was Almgren’s first marathon, he didn’t come out of nowhere. In September he won the half-marathon at the World Athletics Road Running Championships in a blistering 58:06, one of the 10 fastest times in history.

He’s also excelled at the 10,000 meters, winning bronze at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. He took gold in the event at the European Championships in August, shattering an event record that had stood since 1978 with a time of 27:23.44.

Almgren’s performance on Sunday was also a boon for Nike, his sponsor. A decade ago, the footwear giant kicked off the “super shoe” era that revolutionized marathon running with models that featured a springy carbon-fiber plate and superlight energy-returning foam.

But Nike had since fallen behind competitors like Adidas, whose runners wore an ultralight offering to shatter the two-hour marathon barrier in London last April.

Almgren said last week he would race in Nike’s Apex model, one of a wave of recent releases.

AI Investors Are Racing to Get Insurance on the Biggest Market Bet in History

With trillions riding on the artificial-intelligence trade, investors, traders and tech executives alike are hunting for high-stakes protection

Wall Street placed a multitrillion-dollar bet on artificial intelligence. Some investors are desperate to take the other side.

The trade has proved a lasting winner up to now. Excitement about AI’s potential to transform the economy has lifted stocks from tech heavyweights to utilities and chip makers, while driving a speculative frenzy in other corners of the market.

Some of these optimistic forecasts got a recent reality check, with big and small players alike failing to meet the market’s expectations. Now, investors are sizing up how to protect themselves against the risk of a larger unraveling.

“We’re seeing really significant demand from folks looking to protect downside,” said Stephen Solaka, a senior vice president at Gateway Investment Advisers.

The jitters are starting to show up in a number of ways: the yields lenders demand to finance big data-center projects and chip purchases; the plunging stock and bond prices of some AI “neocloud” companies, such as CoreWeave that are borrowing heavily; and steep selloffs from tech darlings including Alphabet and Intel, which just recorded some of their biggest one-day drops ever. The tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 2.9% Friday, capping its worst month since March 2025.

Solaka oversees portfolios for individuals who often have concentrated bets in individual stocks, including the tech giants that have powered markets in recent years. Increasingly, he said, his clients—some of whom are former employees of those very technology companies—are looking for something else: insurance.

“These people have made so much money, they’re quitting to hedge their stock,” Solaka said, adding that some companies have restrictions around employees’ trades.

Investors and tech executives alike are turning to options and credit-default swaps for protection.

Put options, which give investors the right to sell stock at a specific price at a future date, are growing in volume. Contracts tied to the neocloud CoreWeave surged to the highest level on record this month and have stayed elevated, Cboe Global Markets data show.

Some of the most popular bets tied to CoreWeave have been put options expiring in 2028, paying out if the shares plunged to $35. The shares hovered at around $55 this week.

Meanwhile, the cost to protect against a debt default in hyperscalers Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Oracle widened over the past month to the highest levels going back to 2021, according to the bond data provider Solve. “There were no exceptions, suggesting broad market concern about the sector rather than idiosyncratic credit events at individual companies,” said Eugene Grinberg, a co-founder of Solve.

The recalibration in Oracle credit-default spreads was especially stark, widening by more than 1 percentage point.

The AI build-out is expected to grow so large that traders are cooking up other ways to hedge its risks.

Quant trading firm Jump Trading recently launched a trading desk for computing power. The nascent operation has been taking advantage of wide price differences across providers, the types of inefficiencies that have been tougher to come by in mainstream markets such as stocks and options. It has also been structuring over-the-counter derivatives, including for those who want to hedge against a big collapse in prices going forward.

“Folks are becoming more discerning about which participants are winners and losers, and asking tougher questions,” said Dave Olsen, president of Jump. “People are drilling deeper into the economic models.”

Here’s how a trade would work.

A neocloud or AI infrastructure developer that rents out Nvidia chips might buy a put option to hedge against the possibility that the hourly rental rates they pocket will plunge if demand drops.

It would have the right to sell that compute power at a specific price by a stated date, buffering itself from a steeper hit to profits. Jump would agree to take the other side. Jump could also negotiate a cash-settled contract, simply paying the provider in cash. Or the trading firm could agree to rent the compute, or find someone else to rent it to for a profit.

The cost to rent Nvidia B300 chips has surged around 56% this year to $7.56 an hour, according to a Silicon Data index. Jump, for example, could agree to buy if prices fell to $4 an hour.

Olsen and his traders are closely scrutinizing the creditworthiness of those they cut deals with, and the likelihood that they might default on their obligations.

Big exchanges and trading firms are also looking to launch a web of derivatives tied to compute, as it is known in the industry.

Susquehanna International Group, one of the largest trading firms on Wall Street, has fielded interest—both directly and through intermediaries such as brokers—from data centers and privately held neoclouds seeking to hedge their exposure to semiconductor chips, said Nick Volbi, head of institutional prediction markets at the trading firm. If compute prices sank because of decreased demand or increased supply, the trades would pay out, hedging an option buyer against losses in other parts of its business.

That includes put option trades tied to a compute index, which can serve as insurance to assuage lenders at banks, he said.

“I’m going to go to a potential lender and say, ‘Hey, if I buy this structure and I get this form of insurance, can you now give me financing? And what would that financing look like?’ ” Volbi said.

There has been some thin trading in prediction markets tied to data-center moratoriums in certain states. Kalshi offers trades on which states might halt new data-center developments before 2028, including New Hampshire, Michigan and Maine. So far, though, trades have been sparse.

Olsen said hedging strategies as a whole are still dwarfed by the AI trade. Many remain bullish.

“I don’t think my house is going to catch on fire, but I still have insurance,” Olsen said. “You don’t need to be bearish to want some insurance.”

AI Investors Are Racing to Get Insurance on the Biggest Market Bet in History

With trillions riding on the artificial-intelligence trade, investors, traders and tech executives alike are hunting for high-stakes protection

Wall Street placed a multitrillion-dollar bet on artificial intelligence. Some investors are desperate to take the other side.

The trade has proved a lasting winner up to now. Excitement about AI’s potential to transform the economy has lifted stocks from tech heavyweights to utilities and chip makers, while driving a speculative frenzy in other corners of the market.

Some of these optimistic forecasts got a recent reality check, with big and small players alike failing to meet the market’s expectations. Now, investors are sizing up how to protect themselves against the risk of a larger unraveling.

“We’re seeing really significant demand from folks looking to protect downside,” said Stephen Solaka, a senior vice president at Gateway Investment Advisers.

The jitters are starting to show up in a number of ways: the yields lenders demand to finance big data-center projects and chip purchases; the plunging stock and bond prices of some AI “neocloud” companies, such as CoreWeave that are borrowing heavily; and steep selloffs from tech darlings including Alphabet and Intel, which just recorded some of their biggest one-day drops ever. The tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 2.9% Friday, capping its worst month since March 2025.

Solaka oversees portfolios for individuals who often have concentrated bets in individual stocks, including the tech giants that have powered markets in recent years. Increasingly, he said, his clients—some of whom are former employees of those very technology companies—are looking for something else: insurance.

“These people have made so much money, they’re quitting to hedge their stock,” Solaka said, adding that some companies have restrictions around employees’ trades.

Investors and tech executives alike are turning to options and credit-default swaps for protection.

Put options, which give investors the right to sell stock at a specific price at a future date, are growing in volume. Contracts tied to the neocloud CoreWeave surged to the highest level on record this month and have stayed elevated, Cboe Global Markets data show.

Some of the most popular bets tied to CoreWeave have been put options expiring in 2028, paying out if the shares plunged to $35. The shares hovered at around $55 this week.

Meanwhile, the cost to protect against a debt default in hyperscalers Amazon, Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Oracle widened over the past month to the highest levels going back to 2021, according to the bond data provider Solve. “There were no exceptions, suggesting broad market concern about the sector rather than idiosyncratic credit events at individual companies,” said Eugene Grinberg, a co-founder of Solve.

The recalibration in Oracle credit-default spreads was especially stark, widening by more than 1 percentage point.

The AI build-out is expected to grow so large that traders are cooking up other ways to hedge its risks.

Quant trading firm Jump Trading recently launched a trading desk for computing power. The nascent operation has been taking advantage of wide price differences across providers, the types of inefficiencies that have been tougher to come by in mainstream markets such as stocks and options. It has also been structuring over-the-counter derivatives, including for those who want to hedge against a big collapse in prices going forward.

“Folks are becoming more discerning about which participants are winners and losers, and asking tougher questions,” said Dave Olsen, president of Jump. “People are drilling deeper into the economic models.”

Here’s how a trade would work.

A neocloud or AI infrastructure developer that rents out Nvidia chips might buy a put option to hedge against the possibility that the hourly rental rates they pocket will plunge if demand drops.

It would have the right to sell that compute power at a specific price by a stated date, buffering itself from a steeper hit to profits. Jump would agree to take the other side. Jump could also negotiate a cash-settled contract, simply paying the provider in cash. Or the trading firm could agree to rent the compute, or find someone else to rent it to for a profit.

The cost to rent Nvidia B300 chips has surged around 56% this year to $7.56 an hour, according to a Silicon Data index. Jump, for example, could agree to buy if prices fell to $4 an hour.

Olsen and his traders are closely scrutinizing the creditworthiness of those they cut deals with, and the likelihood that they might default on their obligations.

Big exchanges and trading firms are also looking to launch a web of derivatives tied to compute, as it is known in the industry.

Susquehanna International Group, one of the largest trading firms on Wall Street, has fielded interest—both directly and through intermediaries such as brokers—from data centers and privately held neoclouds seeking to hedge their exposure to semiconductor chips, said Nick Volbi, head of institutional prediction markets at the trading firm. If compute prices sank because of decreased demand or increased supply, the trades would pay out, hedging an option buyer against losses in other parts of its business.

That includes put option trades tied to a compute index, which can serve as insurance to assuage lenders at banks, he said.

“I’m going to go to a potential lender and say, ‘Hey, if I buy this structure and I get this form of insurance, can you now give me financing? And what would that financing look like?’ ” Volbi said.

There has been some thin trading in prediction markets tied to data-center moratoriums in certain states. Kalshi offers trades on which states might halt new data-center developments before 2028, including New Hampshire, Michigan and Maine. So far, though, trades have been sparse.

Olsen said hedging strategies as a whole are still dwarfed by the AI trade. Many remain bullish.

“I don’t think my house is going to catch on fire, but I still have insurance,” Olsen said. “You don’t need to be bearish to want some insurance.”

An iconic race car once seemed lost to time. Now two owners think it’s theirs.

ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS PORSCHES in the world is a race car painted in a psychedelic swirl of purples and greens. Known as the “Hippie Car,” the sleek, long-tailed Porsche 917LH stunned the racing world in 1970 by beating juggernaut Ferrari at the famed Le Mans race in France. It finished second behind another 917 on that torrentially rainy day, as captured in Steve McQueen’s iconic racing movie, Le Mans.

Porsche says the Hippie Car raced again in 1971 in orange-and-blue colors, clocking 240 miles per hour, a record at the time.

That makes the vehicle an ultra-rare artifact—with a market value potentially as high as the $25 million record currently held by another 917K. These days, masterpieces of motorsports history are selling for Pablo Picasso prices.

Only now, two people own what appears to be the same Hippie Car.

There’s a purple-and-green Porsche at the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum in Philadelphia. A second is owned by Frank Sytner, a former car dealer and race car driver who bought it in 2024 from another onetime race car driver in Brazil, who’d had it for decades.

The result is one of the strangest competitions in elite car history. While the museum has largely kept mum, Sytner, an 82-year-old Liverpool native based in Italy, has gone to great lengths to persuade collectors and experts of his car’s singular authenticity. He launched a website to post his research last year and has taken his Porsche to upscale car shows and races around the world, including the Le Mans Classic, the Goodwood Festival of Speed and, this fall, the inaugural Rétromobile show in New York.

Last year, Sytner even visited the Simeone museum with his lawyer and adviser, where, over platters of pretzels and bagels, he says he politely asked its chairman, Robert Dusek, to further research its car. The museum confirmed the cordiality of their meeting. The problem for Simeone: The museum has never been able to verify with complete certainty that it has the Hippie Car, but its curators also harbor doubts about their newfound rival, according to Harry Hurst, the museum’s director of programming. Were either car to come to market, the difference between the official Hippie Car and its copy could be tens of millions of dollars.

Dale Miller, a prototype Porsche adviser and former director of a historical car museum now known as the Revs Institute in Naples, Florida, has been tracking every hairpin twist. “Let’s face it, one of these cars is being misrepresented,” Miller says, “and something doesn’t add up.”

A MIX-UP LIKE THIS is easier than you might think. Before cars became collectibles, race cars were seen and valued as just that: cars to race.

Most race cars are identified by their chassis numbers, a serial number welded to a car’s metal frame. In the 1960s and 1970s, racing teams at Porsche and elsewhere often changed out their cars’ chassis numbers during the racing seasons, Miller says. Customs paperwork, or carnets, required listing a car’s chassis number, but if an approved vehicle got damaged days or weeks ahead of a major race in another country, teams would often pry off its number and reattach it onto a spare that could race in its place.

No one cared about this hectic habit when the teams’ goals were simply to win. For decades after each racing season ended, factories reworked or dismantled their cars for parts, or else sold them with whatever chassis numbers and records existed for them. Rupert Banner, a specialist at Gooding Christie’s who sits on the Simeone board, says tracing original chassis details for historic race cars is now “forensically difficult” because, he says, the cars “were built for purpose, obsolete within moments and then treated by the factories as an excess to offload.”

Both the Simeone museum and Sytner agree that the famous Hippie initially bore the chassis number 043. They also both believe the chassis numbers on each of their cars were, at some point, changed.

From there, their stories differ. The museum’s founder believed his Hippie race car was retagged 044 by Porsche when the company sold the chassis several years after the Le Mans race. It went to a Hermosa Beach, California, car dealer named Vasek Polak for around $31,000 and then changed hands several more times.

Porsche says it actually sold at least two 917LHs to Polak—and Sytner says one of these other cars later shipped to Brazil was the real Hippie Car, and it ultimately ended up with him.

WHEN FREDERICK A. SIMEONE, the retired neurosurgeon and legendary car collector who founded the Simeone museum, bought his purple-and-green Porsche in 1999, its provenance wasn’t crystal clear.

Advertisement

At a Christie’s auction the year before, the house said it was “believed to be the Martini/Gulf racing 917LH that placed second overall at the 1970 Le Mans.” A California dealer consortium called Symbolic Motor Car Company bought it for $1 million and reached out to Porsche afterward to secure confirmation on the car’s origins.

On October 1, 1998, Porsche’s customer racing coordinator at the time, Jürgen Barth, wrote Symbolic a letter confirming that the factory had stripped the famous 043 to its metal frame after the 1971 race and later sold it to Polak “believing it to be 917-044,” according to a copy of the letter shown to The Wall Street Journal.

Kevin Kelly, Simeone’s executive director, says Frederick Simeone bought it from Symbolic in part because he believed in the car’s possible ties to Le Mans. He also kept it purple and green in part because he liked to keep his cars as he bought them, dents and all. (Simeone died in 2022.)

“It’s a fuzzy story,” Kelly says, “but he was doing his own research.”

Frank Jung, head of corporate archives and collections at the Porsche Museum, says the company’s own internal archives are based on cataloging by the historian Walter Näher, and Näher’s 917 research doesn’t corroborate that 043 was switched out for 044. Jung said he can’t verify the 1998 letter but said the company did make chassis-number changes to its race cars. Barth, the letter’s author, retired and was later accused but not convicted in a German regional court of sharing car records with a group creating Porsche copies; he denied any wrongdoing. Barth disputed Jung’s findings and said he stands by his own 160-page report on the 043.

“We refrain from making judgments regarding the authenticity or originality of the vehicles that exist today,” Jung said.

ASELF-DESCRIBED PETROL HEAD, Sytner used to keep a wish list of cars he had never driven or owned but wanted. At some point, the 917 became “the one box that was never ticked,” he says.

He says he set out to “find the truth” about the Hippie Car after he bought his vehicle from Massimo Pedrazzi, the Brazilian race car driver, in 2024.

Sytner hired Porsche experts including Andy Prill and automotive writer Doug Nye to study his acquisition. Sytner says Pedrazzi’s 917 at one point carried the chassis number 040, but Porsche said the other 917 it sold to Polak had the chassis number 009.

Prill chalked up the chassis number confusion to a deliberate disguise: When Polak sold the car to Pedrazzi in the 1970s, Prill theorized, Polak switched out the chassis plate to avoid paying higher customs taxes on a famous race car. If customs officials checked on the car parts as they entered Brazil, they would see Porsche had logged 040 as scrapped—and seemingly of lesser value. But Prill said he has no documentation to prove the chassis-plate swap.

Last year, Sytner also shipped his Porsche to Germany to be looked at by 917’s original engineers, including Norbert Singer, who confirmed he looked in the car for about half an hour. Singer says he noticed some bodywork changes but can’t vouch for either car as the original.

Sytner says he intended for the trip to be a reunion and a photo shoot, not a verification, adding about the car, “I feel very confident in its provenance.”

Jung isn’t ruling for either car. He said Porsche’s records now indicate the Simeone’s 044 was a spare when Polak bought it, but Polak’s other 917 wasn’t logged as the famed 043, either. Porsche is open to having “constructive discussions,” Jung said, adding that he hopes “the owners of both vehicles are working together to establish the actual facts.”

Lately Sytner has been campaigning for his Hippie Car to be dubbed the world’s first art car.

This bragging right is built on the history of Porsche designer Anatole Lapine, who slathered the 043’s white fiberglass body in 1,500 spray cans of purple and green paint on the morning of the Le Mans race that would make it famous.

Sytner says he’s not trying to market his car to sell it—it’s not for sale, he says—but he thinks among the Le Mans cars, it should be considered a work of art.

Miller, the car historian and consultant, says artists such as Sonia Delaunay were well known for transforming cars, including the 1925 Citroën B12, with geometric shapes many years before. Porsche said it has never referred to the Hippie as an art car.

Recently, Sytner produced a video on the grounds of the historic Château de Chantilly. “This is not just a car with a significant race history,” Sytner’s cousin Jeremy Jackson-Sytner, an event organizer known as Mr. Concours, says to the camera. “It’s an extremely rare and hugely valuable piece of moving sculpture.”