It is not that frequent that a company can claim a direct benefit from religion. Still, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (NYSE: FCAU) has received more than a car-load of what may be free attention due to the Pope’s visit this week to the East Coast.

Most of us think of the “Popemobile” as a large car with a lot of clear glass for the Pope to sit in and be seen by the public. Well, Pope Francis comes from a much more humble background and chooses not to live lavishly. The Popemobile for the Pope’s East Coast tour, at least right when he got off the airplane, is a small four-door Fiat 500L.

Fiat itself may not be capitalizing directly from this, but this has to be a serious amount of free advertising for the company, as it still has a very low market share for the Fiat brand in the United States. Jeep also is getting its turn of free publicity here, via a white specialized Jeep Wrangler.

It probably would not be well-received by the public if Fiat were to try to capitalize on this effort publicly. After all, a slogan of “If it’s good enough for the Pope, isn’t it good enough for you?” might rub people the wrong way. And Fiat almost certainly would not dare come out and say “The Fiat 500L could be your chariot to Heaven.”

All comments and potential slogans aside, it is hard to deny that Fiat just received a lot of free advertising from the Pope’s first visit to the United States.

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It turns out that Fiat Chrysler is enjoying a bit of a boost during this visit as well. Its American depositary shares (ADSs) were up 3.8% at $13.84 on Wednesday morning — and the average daily volume of about 5.2 million shares had already been passed up by 10:30 a.m. Eastern time.
Without just pointing to the Pope, it is worth noting that Fiat Chrysler’s ADSs had been hit down hard this week. They were above $15.00 just last week, but that was before Volkswagen’s huge fiasco bled other car-makers’ shares. Fiat Chrysler’s ADSs were down 80 cents at $13.33 on Tuesday, on more than 13.3 million shares traded that day. Fiat Chrysler has a 52-week trading range of $8.54 to $17.08.

Other news outlets have noticed this as well. The Telegraph in the U.K. noted that Pope Francis abandoned the Popemobile for a modest Fiat 500L on the U.S. visit. Also, The Independent said that the Pope “brings Italian cool to the U.S. by swapping the Popemobile for a Fiat 500L.” The Washington Post even ran a 215-year history of Popemobiles.

Fiat sales in the United States are hardly a fraction of Fiat Chrysler’s other brand sales. The brands for the most part do not even really compete for the same buyers. The combined Fiat and Chrysler sales were 201,672 units in the United States in August, dominated by Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler brand sales.

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Fiat said that the new 2016 Fiat 500X sales were up 7% in August from July, but its dealerships sold only 1,029 units of the new crossover last month. Fiat showed that all Fiat brand sales in August were 3,388 units and total Fiat brand sales year to date were down 12% from the prior year at 28,421 units.

It will be interesting to see if Fiat’s 500L suddenly gets a flood of orders. Fiat Chrysler will care also. Year to date, sales of 500L cars at the end of August were only 6,695, and that was down 19% from the same time last year. For the month of August, that figure was only 305 total units sold in the United States.

Fiat’s own brand sales may not be the only winner here. As mentioned, the Jeep brand is getting its share of time in the spotlight as well. Pope Francis’s larger Popemobile to be seen by onlookers was a specialized Jeep Wrangler.

Having a brand get shown by celebrities is nothing new. Sometimes companies pay handily for such exposure. Other times they get the exposure for free. It probably goes without saying that Fiat just got more advertising in the United States than it could ever planned on, without buying traditional commercial spots for ads on television.

A media contact from Fiat Chrysler told 24/7 Wall St. that the company is not commenting on the matter and has referred us to a Vatican City representative in Washington, D.C. We have not yet heard from that representative.

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