Featured Image Credit: Joe Vericker / Contributor / Getty
As the Catholic Church looks to find its next Pope, stories about Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio) and his colorful life continue to come out. Having served as the pontiff from March 2013 until April 2025, Pope Francis tragically passed away just after the Easter celebrations.
When you tend to think of the Pope and vehicles, you'll likely picture the Popemobile, but imagine if you saw Pope Francis zipping around the streets of Rome or tearing up donuts inside Vatican City in a custom Lamborghini.
While Pope Francis didn't sneak a secret cameo into the next Fast & Furious movie before his death, he did once have a Lamborghini Huracán in his Vatican garage. Gifted the white and gold custom in 2017, the unique coloring was supposed to reflect the colors of the Vatican flag.
Pope Francis was said to prefer simpler forms of transport, and when he was a cardinal, he was known to take public transport. On the night of his election, he opted to ride back with the other cardinals in a minibus instead of enjoying a life of luxury in a papal limousine.
Advert
He traveled around the Vatican in a Ford Focus, and in 2024, was given the Vatican's first all-electric popemobile in the form of a Mercedes-Benz G-Wagen.
As for his brief dalliance with a Lamborghini Huracán, the luxury car maker gave it to Pope Francis before His Holiness blessed it and signed the hood. Instead of keeping it as a daily runaround, he eventually auctioned the car and vowed to give the proceeds to a good cause.
Lamborghini confirms this one-of-a-kind Huracán went under the hammer in 2018 at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco, fetching an impressive €715,000 ($810,000). The money was handed over to Pope Francis, who'd earmarked four charity entities.
These included the Pontifical Foundation “Aiuto alla Chiesa che Soffre” (Aid to the Church in Need) that planned to rebuild the Nineveh Plain in Iraq, the Pope John XXIII Community that devotes itself to female victims of trade and prostitution, as well as the GICAM and Friends of Central Africa, which are two Italian associations carrying out activities largely in Africa.
We don't know what the Pope would've done with his Lambo, but he previously showed his commitment to tackling climate change. He famously rode in an economical Fiat 500L when he visited Washington in 2015, which should help offset some of the environmental damage done by the POTUS' ride of choice, known as 'The Beast'.
In the weeks before his death, Pope Francis also issued a stark warning about the dangers of technology and praying that "the use of the new technologies will not replace human relationships." Although he's left this world behind, he looked ahead at the advancements in artificial intelligence while talking about an "evil that looms here."
We don't imagine he'd be too impressed by AI predicting his successor.
