The Popemobile

There aren’t many people who can say that they have a truck built especially for them, but in this minority was a luminary by the name of Karol Josef Wojtyla.

At the end of May into June of 1982, the head of the Catholic Church, the Pope, came to the UK on a five-day pastoral visit, but following assassination attempts in both 1981 and 1982, a vehicle was required which would allow him to be seen, close-up, by the expectant crowds of religious well-wishers, while keeping him safe from any threats to his life. These concerns proved valid as, following the attempted assassination by a Turkish gunman earlier in May of the same year, a ‘crazed Spanish priest’ tried to stab him in 1983. We understand that as the UK visit was pastoral, the total cost, of an estimated £7 million,