Some people match their shoes to their outfit, whilst others match their car to their outfit. As His Holiness Pope Francis drives around in a humble blue Ford Focus within Vatican walls, Lamborghini believed the white papal cassock would look more at home in an equally white Huracan.
A seemingly humoristic act of the Italian automaker is one with earnest intentions: the one of a kind Huracan will be sold off at auction for several good causes. The standard rear wheel drive Lamborghini usually sells for around 180,000 euros, though a unique model owned and signed by Pope Francis himself, intended for charity, is likely to raise a considerably larger amount. The gift is of remarkable nature, considering Pope Francis humbly has avoided fancy bullet-proof SUVs, opting instead for modest Fiats or KIAs wherever he travels.
The car was realized by Lamborghini’s Ad Personam department. The special edition model pays tribute to the colours of the flag of Vatican City, painted in Bianco Monocerus with Giallo Tiberino decorated alongside the Huracán’s silhouette.
Some of the funds raised from the auction will go to rebuilding homes, churches and places of worship in Iraq’s Nineveh Plains that were devastated during three years of fighting by the Islamic State group. The Vatican aims to enable Christians, who were forced to flee Nineveh, “to finally return to their roots and recover their dignity.” Other funds will go to a women trafficking and prostitution charity, and medical care in Africa.
Although we are delighted to see such kind acts of benevolence, the petrolhead within us cannot help but imagine the pope taking the car out for a spin when nobody’s watching. Maybe the next time we see white smoking rising from within the Vatican walls, it will be coming from a set of smouldering Pirelli’s instead of the papal conclave…
