The Pope has bought 20 Fiat Topolinos for Vatican City

The new Popemobile will be a Fiat. Well, sort of. The most Italian manufacturer of cars that cost less than your soul (we’re looking at you, Italian supercars) has done a deal with the Governorate of the Vatican City State to supply it with thirty vehicles – consisting of the aggressively cute, all-electric Topolino and the similarly EV TRIS three-wheel delivery pickup.

The Topolino, you’ll recall, is basically a Fiatine interpretation of the Citroen Ami quadricycle (they both sit under the Stellantis umbrellacorp), but with a tad more flair. The TRIS is a remake of the legendary Piaggio Ape trike delivery vehicle so beloved of last-mile delivery and ‘characterful’ action movie chase scenes.

It’s all to do with the Vatican’s sustainable mobility development programme, which it's calling ‘Ecological Conversion 2030’, aimed at reducing the CO2 footprint of its vehicle fleet, and dealing with ‘last mile’ delivery in a friendly way. Which shouldn’t actually be that difficult when your city state has pretty much everything a mile away, is landlocked within the bosom of Rome, has a population under 1,000 people, and is officially the smallest country in the world.

Interestingly, Vatican City actually encompasses just 109 acres of real estate, which isn’t even a particularly large farm – if you’re going to deal with ‘urban mobility’, it doesn’t get much more urban than this.

Still, the TRIS (not present at the handover event but pictured below in Dolcevita concept form) can haul two standard euro pallets in its 2.25m-square trayback – there are covered options for the possible 420kg payload, too – and the 56-mile range from a 6.9kWh battery means it can do a fair few laps of the country, what with the Vatican City only being a couple of miles in circumference.

On the flipside, the Topolino (or ‘little mouse’) is also being delivered, presumably to move bishops and priests in a sustainable, micromobility manner. That’s a 28mph max, 46-mile range enclosed quadricycle with a 5.4kWh battery that charges from a home socket in four hours.

It’s only got 8bhp and hits 62mph from rest in … never, the 0-28mph sprint taking ten seconds. Perfect if you only need to go just over there, and not very quickly. Or take a quick spin around the Sistine Chapel GP circuit.

The Vatican is getting the first 20 Topolinos (priced at £8,995 in the UK, though one suspects the Pope got some sort of discount), and one of them has been delivered by… TopGear.com. More on that very soon.