Vehicle picked up Pope in the outskirts of town (8)
I believe the answer is:
suburban
'outskirts of town' is the definition.
'vehicle picked up pope' is the wordplay.
'vehicle' becomes 'bus' (I've seen this before).
'picked up' says the letters should be written backwards.
'pope' becomes 'urban' (pope urban was a pope).
'bus' reversed gives 'sub'.
'sub'+'urban'='SUBURBAN'
'in the' is the link.
(Other definitions for suburban that I've seen before include "Relating to outskirts of city" , "Like outer city areas" , "In the outlying city" , "Residential district on a city's outskirts" , "Relating to the outskirts of a town" .)