It's ba-ack. The VW Golf that drew 8.5 million hits the first time it appeared on eBay is back on the block. That was almost two years ago in May of 2005, believe it or not. In case you don't remember, this 1999 Volkswagen Golf was the personal conveyance of then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger, until shortly before his ascendance to Popehood. The Cardinal sold the car and it ended up in the hands of one Benjamin Halbe, who had no idea who the former owner was, but hit the jackpot when Ratzinger became Pope. The 6-year-old grey car sold for almost €190,000 when press-hungry GoldenPalace.com decided they had to have it. Well, apparently the novelty has worn off and it's time to shed the vehicle from their collection of oddities.
GoldenPalace.com has put the VeeDub up for sale and promises that the proceeds will go to Habitat for Humanity Great Britain. They also say that the car has not been driven since it was bought in 2005, so mileage should still be around 75,000 KM. In case the lucky bidder decides to drive the car, they should know that it has been started and features a 5-speed manual transmission, AC, PW, PL, tilt steering, cassette stereo, alloys, ABS, dual front airbags, side airbags, safety belt pretensioners, and presumably, God as your co-pilot. With more than eight days left, the bidding is already over $55,000.
[Source: eBay via German Car Scene]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
DPC car videos @ Apr 2nd 2007 4:07PM
Let me think about this for a minute, buy this car because the current pope owned it at one point but in reality as a car it is worth at most 5-6K. Or buy a brand new Ferrari F430 and have some extra cash in my pocket. Hmmmmmm....
http://www.dpccars.com
DPCcars
... @ Apr 2nd 2007 4:21PM
Yes it's ridiculous and a Ferrari would take precedent over this for me too, but you have to remember it's also for charity. Donate a few hundred thousand and get a car with a history, seems like a fair deal if what you want to do is donate money.
Jim in Tampa @ Apr 2nd 2007 6:05PM
This looks an awful lot like my first new car - a VW Rabbit. It spent more time on a flatbed on the way to the dealership than it did on the road.
JayP @ Apr 2nd 2007 6:10PM
I like the wheels.
Ken @ Apr 2nd 2007 9:19PM
Cool - at least the pope knows how to drive a stick!
mirko @ Apr 3rd 2007 4:18AM
Ken, the pope never even had a driving license - the car was only registered on his name, it was only used by his secretary.
And he's German, so if he had a driving license, he'd know how to drive stick, since you are only allowed to do driving school in an automatic car if you are physically unable to operate a stick - e.g. missing an arm.