zzdcar
Home
/
Reviews
/
Trucks
/
The Pope's Humble Pickup Truck Is A Very Practical Popemobile
The Pope's Humble Pickup Truck Is A Very Practical Popemobile-November 2024
2024-02-19 EST 22:13:07

Image for article titled The Pope's Humble Pickup Truck Is A Very Practical Popemobile

His Holiness, the leader of the Catholic church, has ridden in many vehicles on parades to receive well-wishings from parishioners around the world. But the Nissan pickup truck he’s using on the island of Mauritius is one of my new favorites.

We joke about how old the 2019 Nissan Frontier is sometimes, and yeah, the current U.S.-spec version of Nissan’s mid-sized truck look was last fresh for 2005. But in other parts of the world, the automaker’s still running the design that came out before that one.

The current South Africa Nissan truck model, known as the , looks like the Frontier we got stateside in 2001. (Though I originally thought it was the late ’90s–this chunky facelift came a few years into the “D22” body era).The simple design is still going strong over there, being offered up with modest engines and manual transmissions.

The base single-cab trim starts at what exchanges to about $15,000 in American money.

since it’s so far from the continent–over 1,000 miles from the African mainland, it turns out.

The Mauritia version of SCV1 (the Popemobile’s license plate is an abbreviation of Status Civitatis Vaticanae; Latin for Vatican City State) looks a little more industrial and simplistic than some Popemobiles of the past, but I like it. Men of the cloth are supposed to live humbly, right? This seems a lot more consistent with that than or a .

Nissan of South Africa says that the vehicle “will be put on permanent display by the diocese as a memento of the pope’s visit to the island” after the pope departs.

Comments
Welcome to zzdcar comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Trucks
Ford Robbed Us Of The Old Four-Door Ranger To Give Us The Explorer Sport Trac
Ford Robbed Us Of The Old Four-Door Ranger To Give Us The Explorer Sport Trac
By definition, a big truck like a or struggles to be small. Even in its smallest, most trucky configuration — a two-door single cab — a full-size truck is relatively large and comes with a sizable bed for hauling cargo. But a small truck like the third-generation can do...
Nov 8, 2025
The 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger Is The Hybrid Truck America Probably Needs
The 2025 Ram 1500 Ramcharger Is The Hybrid Truck America Probably Needs
In addition to the all-electric , the truck brand announced this week that it will also release a engine gasoline-powered hybrid version of its electric pickup, called Ramcharger. The goal here is to use the V6 engine as a generator for the electric powertrain when the 92 kWh battery...
Nov 8, 2025
There Was Once A Glorious Compact Chevy ZR2 Truck
There Was Once A Glorious Compact Chevy ZR2 Truck
Those who saw the meteoric rise of through the 2010s and onward probably associate the badge with the . The was Chevy’s halo midsize truck when it was released in 2016, but the ZR2 badging goes all the way to the when Chevy made the S-10 ZR2. It’s gnarly....
Nov 8, 2025
Porsche Built A 911 With Portal Axles To Go Where Unimogs Can't Reach
Porsche Built A 911 With Portal Axles To Go Where Unimogs Can't Reach
No car has ever driven at higher altitude than this 992-generation Porsche 911 Carrera 4S with portal axles. On Saturday the Porsche crew, led by racing driver Romain Dumas, reached the highest peak of the west ridge of the Ojos del Salado volcano in Chile, . That’s the tallest...
Nov 8, 2025
Deer Flies Directly Into Pickup As Its Prospective Buyer Arrives
Deer Flies Directly Into Pickup As Its Prospective Buyer Arrives
No square inch of the Northeast is safe from deer, as video out of New Jersey shows. A deer, tearing through the suburbs, managed to leap over a Pontiac Vibe and Honda CR-V before landing on the bedside of a 2007 Chevy Silverado — just as a prospective buyer arrived...
Nov 8, 2025
The Nissan Navara Was The Overdue Frontier We Deserved A Decade Ago
The Nissan Navara Was The Overdue Frontier We Deserved A Decade Ago
gets dunked on for letting models like the languish for years. But, the truck saw a model update well before the release of the , which is mechanically much like an with a design. Outside of the U.S., the successor to the second-generation Frontier came in 2014 with the...
Nov 8, 2025
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.zzdcar.com All Rights Reserved