Family Feud over Pope's Car

Last week, there was a story in the Aurora Beacon News about a man in Sugar Grove, IL, who was going to sell the only car Pope John Paul II ever owned, a 1975 Ford Escort. According to the story, he's going to auction it off in Las Vegas on June 4th.

There was only one problem. He didn't actually have possession of the car. It was in his shuttered restaurant and he didn't have the keys to the place. A week after that first story in the Beacon News, it reported that the son had borrowed $1.7M from his father and used the restaurant and its contents as collateral.

The son and his father have been in court since last summer over who has possession of the restaurant. At that time, the court appointed an independent party to be the receiver and keep both father and son out of the place without the court's permission.

This weekend, things really got interesting.

On Friday, the son filed for bankruptcy in an attempt to release the restaurant from the court's receiver so he could get the car for the auction. Today, the Daily Herald reported that a Kane County judge threw out the bankruptcy petition and granted possession of the restaurant and the contents (including the pope's car) to the father.

If the father goes to the restaurant, he'll be in for a surprise, because the car isn't there.

A picture of the car is in the Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette this morning with a caption saying that the car will be displayed from today until May 30 at the WW II Victory Museum in Auburn, IN (about 15 miles north of Ft. Wayne). The caption also misidentifies the owner as the son, though the Ft. Wayne paper could hardly have known better.

Somehow, the son must have gotten into the restaurant without the keys, removed the car, and transported it to Ft. Wayne.

I'm guessing that if you want to see this car at the museum, you better get there quickly. I have a feeling that once its rightful owner discovers where it is, it won't be on display for long.

Obviously, this story isn't over yet. I wonder what the pope would have thought about all this fighting over his old car. Of course, this is a family fight and probably has little or nothing to do with the car, but it's the car that has it in the news.