In case you were wondering…
In case you haven’t heard from today’s coverage, the Pope is being driven around in a Skoda… they might have mentioned once, or twice, or 50 times on RTÉ’s coverage of the Papal visit.
A number of licence plates are being used on the different cars during his trip, including some special ones created for the occasion. But in his Skoda on Saturday morning, some people noted that the car had the licence plater “SCV 1”.
SCV1 is an acronym both in Italian and in Latin. The Latin is “Status Civitatis Vaticanae” and the Italian is “Stato della Città del Vaticano” and when translated from both languages, it means “Vatican City.”
Road vehicles registered in Vatican City use the prefix SCV followed by a series of digits.
Some special licence plates have also been prepared by Skoda for the occasion.
“As part of the Papal fleet, we are commemorating Pope John Paul II’s visit to Ireland, with vehicle registration 182-C-1979 and, of course, marking this year’s event with vehicle registration 182-C-2018. 182-D-9093 is the primary vehicle, which, when the digits 9093 are inverted, spells out the word Pope. Each car provided has been customised to requirements.
“Modified glass has been installed and each vehicle has been provided in a unique navy-blue colour as requested. Small chrome flag poles have also been installed to the passenger-side fenders, which will display the Vatican flag,” said Raymond Leddy, head of product at Skoda Ireland told RTÉ.
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