There could be a 'Pope bump' in U.S. Fiat sales

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 28 September 2015

All eyes were on Pope Francis when he landed in the United States last week, as well as the vehicle that whisked him away from the airport: The Fiat 500L.

Newspapers ran headlines about the car, and Twitter users asked where they could buy one (or, better yet, his). There was a major spike in Google searches in the U.S., with five times more searches for "Fiat" on the day of the pope's arrival than the day before, and nine times as many searches for "Fiat 500," the BBC reports. In August, 350 Fiat 500Ls (with an average price of $20,000) were sold in the U.S., and 3,388 cars were sold across all Fiat brands. The Wall Street Journal's Dan Neil said it made "perfect sense" for the pontiff to ride in the vehicle, since he is "charming and unaffected" and the Fiat is "the ultimate everyman car."

Mark Cowdin, general sales manager at Safford Fiat in Tysons Corner, Virginia, told the BBC he sold a car to a woman who had been looking at other cars, but "the pope had convinced her. We've also had several appointments made — people are calling and saying they want one of the Pope's Fiats. My guess is we'll sell two to three times as many as we normally do this month." He's curious to see just how big the "pope bump" might be: "If he can get atheists to watch an address by a pope, he can probably move the sales needle."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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