Pope's Car Is No Auctioneer's Paradise
Bidders at Christie's auction house offered up to $71,820 for a 1958 car that once belonged to the late Pope John Paul II, but the seller decided the sum was not enough.
The green, Polish-made FSO Warszawa M20 was pulled from the auction in Paris late Saturday after bidding failed to reach the minimum reserve price of euro200,000, Christie's said.
The seller was the nephew of the man who chauffeured the late pope during his years as archbishop of Krakow. John Paul II, born Karol Wojtyla, never had a driver's license, and Christie's said the car may have been the only private car he ever owned.
Last year, a Volkswagen Golf fetched more than $243,000 on eBay after word emerged that it may have once belonged to John Paul's successor, Pope Benedict XVI.