Visitors to the Vatican Museums can now walk past a parade of cars that once carried popes through crowds. The show, titled “A Century of the Popemobile”, lines up eight papal cars from the Stuttgart carmaker in the Square Garden. It opened on October 29, runs until January 31, 2027, and comes free with a regular museum ticket.
The display starts before papal motoring even existed, with the 1886 Benz Patent-Motorwagen, widely seen as the first car. The Vatican link itself dates to 1930, when Pius XI received a Nürburg 460 Pullman limousine fitted with silk brocade and fine wood, a rolling throne room for ceremonial outings.
By the 1960s the brief had shifted from comfort to visibility. John XXIII got a landaulet whose rear side windows could be removed in 1960, and after Paul VI returned from the Holy Land a 600 Pullman Landaulet with a raised roof and folding top followed in 1965.
The shape most people picture today arrived in 1980. For John Paul II’s trip to Germany, engineers turned a G-Class off-roader into a vehicle with a raised, transparent cabin at the back, offering protection while letting crowds see him clearly. Later SUVs, including one built for Benedict XVI in 2012, used ever larger panes of glass.
Curator Sandro Barbagallo described the popemobile as a pastoral tool rather than a status symbol, a way to bring the pope closer to people lining the streets. Barbara Jatta, who runs the museums, writes in the catalogue that the car has long been about being seen, not just getting somewhere.
The carmaker’s heritage chief, Marcus Breitschwerdt, shared one charming house rule: at the Stuttgart site where the historic cars are kept, nobody is allowed to sit in the pope’s seat. Archive material from Italian news agency ANSA rounds out the show.
