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(from Daimler Press
Release) 75 years of popemobile manufacture by
Mercedes-BenzMercedes-Benz has been providing popemobiles since
1930. In the summer of that year, 75 years ago, Pope Pius XI
received a Mercedes-Benz Nrburg 460 as a present from Daimler-Benz
AG. In the following decades, Mercedes-Benz supplied the Vatican
with several extensively converted limousines, landaulets and
offroaders as official cars for the Holy Father. For three quarters
of a century, there have therefore been close relations between the
Stuttgart-based automotive brand and the Roman Supreme Pontiff.
The passenger was
enthusiastic. It was clear for all to see that Pope Pius XI had
enjoyed the one-hour trial run in his new Mercedes-Benz through the
Vatican gardens. A masterpiece of modern engineering, the Holy
Father enthused when he climbed out of the Pullman limousine based
on the Mercedes-Benz Nrburg 460. The elegant car with the
three-pointed star on the engine hood had been handed over to him by
a Daimler-Benz delegation and was to go down in history in
subsequent years as the first automobile to be regularly used by a
pope.
This Mercedes-Benz
handed over to Pope Pius XI 75 years ago was nothing less than the
beginning of close relations between the Vatican and the
Stuttgart-based motor manufacturer. In the decades that followed,
Mercedes-Benz regularly presented the Vatican with automobiles which
had been extensively converted for the pope. During the last 25
years, television and newspaper photos made the popemobiles based on
Mercedes-Benz offroaders from the G-Class and M-Class particularly
well known. Especially the travels of Pope John Paul II made the
offroaders, finished in the papal colors mother-of-pearl and gold
and fitted with the characteristic glass cupola, famous throughout
the world. However, the landaulets and limousines based on the
S-Class equally form part of the popes public appearances.
The Mercedes-Benz
Nrburg and the current papal car, an M-Class with special bodywork,
are the cornerstones of the brand history of automobiles from
Stuttgart specially manufactured for the Holy Father. The first
modern model after World War II was a Mercedes-Benz 300 d the
Adenauer-Mercedes handed over to Pope John XXIII by rep-resentatives
from Untertrkheim in 1960, 30 years after Pope Pius XIs trial run
in the Nrburg. The Mercedes-Benz 300 d had been converted into a
landaulet with extended wheelbase with a soft-top above the rear
compartment and a hard-top above the front seats.
In 1965, a delegation
from Stuttgart handed over a landaulet version of the Mercedes-Benz
600 to Pope Paul VI at the papal summer residence. In the following
two years, as many as three cars model 300 SEL from the 109 series
were supplied. For the visit of Pope John Paul II to Germany in
1980, Mercedes-Benz developed the first popemobile with a
transparent superstructure based on an offroader a converted
G-Class car which was given to the Vatican as a present in 1982. In
1985, the Vaticans fleet was extended by the addition of a special
version of the Mercedes-Benz 500 SEL (W 126), followed in 1997 by a
long-wheelbase landaulet version of the S 500. In the summer of
2002, finally, DaimlerChrysler presented the Holy Father with a
popemobile set up on the proven example of the G-Class, only this
time the car was based on the ML 430 from the M-Class.
Tradition and dignity
Starting with the
Nrburg, the history of popemobiles from Mercedes-Benz ranges
through to the 2002 M-Class, reflecting a relationship between the
Holy See and the Stuttgart-based automotive brand, which has
developed and thrived through several pontificates. And this
relationship has time and again been expressed by the close
cooperation between Mercedes-Benz and the Vatican in the design and
manufacture of new automobiles for the pope.
The popes themselves
have held their Mercedes-Benz cars in high esteem, too. When the
M-Class was handed over to Pope John Paul II in Rome in 2002, the
Holy Father himself addressed the media with the plea rather not to
use papa-mobile, the term not being commensurate with the dignity
and purpose of these automobiles.
Sedan-chairs and carriages
For many centuries, the
popes used carriages and sedan-chairs for journeys, processions and
other public appearances. A very special role was played by the
Sedia Gestatoria, the papal sedan-chair. It was carried by twelve
palafrenieri in red uniforms at events of high litur-gical
significance for large congregations. Its purpose was much the same
as that of modern popemobiles with their raised seats: the Holy
Father was to be seen also from quite a distance by the faithful at
important events, attended by large crowds of guests and spectators.
After the invention of
the automobile in 1886, it took several decades before the Vatican
used a motor vehicle for the pope for the first time. The reason for
this was not a reservation against modern engineering but Italian
politics. The Papal States had been dissolved when the Italian
nation was founded in 1870. King Vittorio Emanuele II had offered
Pope Pius IX limited sovereignty which the latter had, however,
refused to accept. In the following six decades, the popes did not
leave Vatican City out of protest against the unsolved Roman
Question.
This situation did not
change before 1929 with the signing of the Lateran Pacts by
Secretary-of-State Pietro Cardinal Gasparri for the Vatican and
Prime Minister Benito Mussolini for the Kingdom of Italy. In these
contracts, the Vatican recognized Rome as the capital of the Italian
nation and in turn, the kingdom recognized the Vaticans territorial
sovereignty in Vatican City and the papal summer residence, Castel
Gandolfo. The signing of the Lateran Pacts in 1929 not only gave the
pope new weight on the international political stage but also ended
the Supreme Pontiffs confinement to Vatican City, which had lasted
almost 60 years.
A Mercedes-Benz for the pope?
For his trips to the
summer residence, Castel Gandolfo, but also for other journeys, the
Holy Father would now use an automobile in the future more often.
Luxurious motor vehicles had already been presented to the Vatican
since 1909. During the first quarter of the 20th century, the fleet
encompassed vehicles from brands like Fiat, Bianchi, Graham-Paige,
Itala, Citron and others. But the pope would not be chauffeured
around in a motor vehicle he didnt after all need a car in an
area with a size of just 44 hectares (108.7 acres) - small enough to
be walked around comfortably in just one hour. Apart from this,
neither Pope Pius X (1903 - 1914) nor his successor Benedict XV
(1914 - 1922) were known to be particularly interested in the modern
engineering of the motor vehicle. Not so Pope Pius XI (1922 - 1939)
who was fascinated by the opportunities offered by the motor vehicle
and promptly started using the Vatican fleets vehicles shortly
after the signing of the Lateran Pacts.
And why was the Holy Father not to undertake his travels in a
Mercedes-Benz? This was the question asked in the spring of 1929 by
Robert Katzenstein, the advertising man of Mercedes-Benz in
Frankfurt/Main, Germany. From this question evolved the idea of a
limousine individually converted for the pope as a present of
Mercedes-Benz for the Vatican. How would the Vatican react to such a
present from Germany?
Katzenstein knew Dr.
Diego von Bergen, the German ambassador to the Vatican, and
presented the idea to him. Von Bergen asked the right people at the
Holy See how the Curia would respond to the present of an imposing
Mercedes-Benz as an official car for the pope. The answer from Rome
turned out to be so encouraging that Katzenstein submitted his
proposal to corporate management without delay. The project of a
Mercedes-Benz popemobile also met with agreement in Stuttgart and
detailed planning began as early as the summer of 1929.
