Pope's Lamborghini sells for $1.13m

If you've ever wondered what sort of car His Holiness Pope Francis would drive if given free reign with the Vatican's gilded purse strings, this $390,000 Italian exotic sports car most certainly wouldn't be it.

Pumping out 426kW of power and 540Nm of torque from its high-revving 5.2-litre V10 engine, this ultra-rare Lamborghini Huracan LP580-2 blasts from 0-100km/h in 3.4secs and on to a top speed of 320km/h.

It also has a nifty drift mode when flamboyance and flair is required.

The Lamborghini Huracan is finished with a heavenly white paint job but the Pope was never tempted to drive it.

That's because the Jorge Bergoglio, the 266th Pope, is on record as saying that it's not befitting priests, nuns and clergy to be driving around in fancy cars while "many children are dying of hunger in the world".

Instead the Pope signed the car and agreed to garage it, but that's about it.

The vehicle was fettled by Lamborghini's "Ad Personam" department to include the colours of Vatican City Flag – gold and white. The Lamborghini Huracan subsequently sold at Sotherby's Monte Carlo Grimaldi Forum auction for an astonishing €715,000, which works to roughly $1.13m in Aussie coin – almost three times its retail price of $390,000 in Australia.

Yep, this is one righteous Lamborghini.

It's not clear who the buyer of the tyre-shredding Lambo is but the money raised from the sale of the unique Lamborghini Huracan LP580-2, which is fitted with a seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, will go directly to the Pope who plans to disperse the funds to "diverse projects" including helping Christians rebuild Iraqi homes and churches.

The 5.2-litre naturally-aspirated V10 sports car was donated to the Pope by Lamborghini in November 2017, which prudently offered the rear-drive version of the exotic sports car. All-wheel drive cars aren't as pure.

The Pope attends formal events in the back of his bulletproof Mercedes-Benz M-Class SUV but you get the feeling that when visiting friends for a luncheon or going for a blat in the hills east of the Vatican, he'd be content driving a Honda Jazz.