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Car once owned by Pope Benedict XVI auctioned on eBay

For sale: gray VW Golf, 75,000km on the clock, one careful gentleman owner, with good connections to God.

The car being auctioned on eBay has a unique selling point: until recently it belonged to Benedict XVI, the new Pope.

A few months before being elected the head of the Catholic church, the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger decided to sell his six-year-old Golf. His private secretary, Josef Clemens, who had imported the vehicle from Germany to Rome in 1999, drove it back from Italy to his home town of Siegen.

There, the bishop sold it to the local VW dealer, Jost Schneider.

"The car was in excellent shape," Schneider told the Guardian on Friday.

"I'm not sure whether the Pope drives or not, but the vehicle had certainly been looked after. We didn't let on about the vehicle's history because selling cars is all about trust."

In January, Schneider sold the Golf to Benjamin Halbe, 21, from Olpe, enigmatically telling him: "Whoever drives this will enjoy spiritual blessing."

It was only when Halbe got hold of the car's registration documents that he realized its previous owner had been the Bavarian cardinal Ratzinger.

"It's a very heavenly ride," Halbe said yesterday. "At first I didn't understand what the dealer meant. Now I understand what he was talking about. Until last week it was a perfectly ordinary cardinal's vehicle."

Halbe put the car on eBay last week.

The reserve price was 9,999 euros -- the same amount he paid for it. So far, though, with six days to go before bidding closes, offers have already topped 45,000 euros.

The Pope, meanwhile, is waiting for his latest vehicle to be delivered.

VW has already offered to build him a new Popemobile in time for August and his first foreign trip as pontiff to Germany.
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