BMW has handed the keys to an X5 sport utility vehicle to Pope Benedict, the carmaker said today.
"We are proud to be able to provide Pope Benedict XVI with a BMW car," the group's chief of marketing and sales, Michael Ganal, said in a statement following an audience with the pontiff.
Pope Benedict XVI arrives at a three-week meeting of the world's bishops at the Vatican
Pope Benedict hails from the small Bavarian town of Marktl am Inn, about an hour's drive from Munich, where BMW is based.
Apart from a fleet of BMW C1 covered scooters, the official Vatican car park only has one BMW 5-Series executive and one 7-Series limousine.
The well-known "Popemobile" by comparison is a modified M-Class SUV built in 1999 by Mercedes-Benz.
The first Popemobile was delivered in 1981 after the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II.
This vehicle is not the Popemobile," a spokesman for BMW said, referring to the X5 now parked in the Vatican. Pope Benedict - formerly Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger - was elected in April.
The following month an Internet casino company won a frenzied online auction for a second-hand Volkswagen Golf once registered to Cardinal Ratzinger.