Yahoo Autos 2015 Fiat 500L used by Pope Francis could sell for $100,000
Fiat's dowdy 500L isn't exactly a champion in terms of resale value; it's not hard to find a used example for less than $10,000. And yet, auction house RM Sotheby's is offering a 2015 Lounge model that could sell for up to $100,000. While that's a tremendous amount of money to pay for a 500L approaching its 10th birthday, the model in question stands out with unusually low mileage and an interesting history.
RM Sotheby's notes that Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles, which later merged with PSA Peugeot-Citroën to form Stellantis, provided the 500L to the Catholic church for the pope's U.S. visit in September 2015. It's a choice that makes sense: the 500L is Italian (Vatican City, the Catholic church's headquarters, is a city-state surrounded by Rome) and it's relatively spacious. Trying to stuff Pope Francis into a regular 500 would have been far less convenient. It's also a relatively low-key car: The pope has made it a point to be humble (he once drove a Renault 4).
Surprisingly, it doesn't look like there's anything special about the 500L; it's seemingly a run-of-the-mill regular-production model. Finished in Grigio Scuro with a body-colored roof, it's powered by a 1.4-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine rated at 160 horsepower and 184 pound-feet of torque. It's equipped with leather upholstery and a six-speed automatic transmission, but it's not bulletproof or otherwise modified.
