The Ultimate "Driven to Church on Sundays" Used Car

From Reuters:

The only car the late Pope John Paul II ever owned sold at auction for $680,000 on Saturday to a Houston attorney and car collector. . . .

The 1975 powder-blue Ford Escort went on the auction block in Las Vegas after a father-son ownership spat was resolved earlier this month. . . .

Pope John Paul, who died in April, drove the car himself and put 60,000 miles on it before giving it in 1996 to Kruse International, an Indiana rare automobile museum and auction house, to sell with the proceeds going to charity.  [That buyer then had the father-ownership spat and auctioned the car again this year. -- ed.]

The prospective auction was discussed in May in this story, which includes details like: (1) the car came with the rosary beads that John Paul threw in as part of the 1996 deal; (2) the late Pope used the car to get away for hikes (or maybe for gelato, see here); and (3) Benedict XVI has yet to reach his predecessor's name recognition but is off to a respectable start, given the six-figure price his former VW Golf fetched on E-Bay this spring.

Tom