Popemobile is up for auction

WITH ONLY 11,000 miles on the clock and one careful owner, the Popemobile used by John Paul 11 is up for auction in Scotland. The 24-ton armour-plated vehicle that was used by the late Pontiff when he visited Glasgow and Edinburgh in 1.982 is being sold by Thomson Roddick Scottish Auctions in Dumfries on September 2.
The vehicle, one of two built by British Leyland, is a sixwheeled Range Rover and truck hybrid that was designed to allow the Pope to be seen by the huge crowds that greeted him while ensuring his complete safety. It has been housed at the Albion Museum in Dumfries but following the death of its founder, Mick Hayton, the collection of trucks and commercial vehicles is being sold off.
Mr Hayton bought the Popemobile from British Leyland in 1998. The other vehicle used during the English leg of the papal tour is housed in the British Commercial Vehicle Museum at Leyland in Lancashire.
Sybelle Thomson, director of Thomson Roddick Scottish Auctions, said: "The Popemobile is certainly one of the rarest contemporary historical vehicles to be offered for sale in recent years."