FOR SALE: Grey VW Golf, 75,000 kilometres 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, Dr 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 localVW dealer, Jost Schneider.
"The car was in excellent shape," Mr Schneider said. "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, Mr Schneider sold the Golf to Benjamin Halbe (21) from Olpe, enigmatically telling him: "Whoever drives this will enjoy spiritual blessing."It was only when Mr Halbe got hold of the car's registration documents that he realised its previous owner had been the Bavarian cardinal Dr Ratzinger.
"It's a very heavenly ride," Mr 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."
Mr Halbe put the car on eBay last week. The reserve price was EUR9,999 - the same amount he paid for it. So far, though, with three days to go before bidding closes, offers have already topped EUR45,000.
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. However, both BMW and Audi are also in the running. The previous Pope used a converted Mercedes ML 4x4. Several models have been used in the past.
The first time Pope John Paul II travelled to his home country, the vehicle was based on the Polish marque Star.