Vance Brock, the bike shop's owner, bought the bus about four years ago and converted it into a house car with the addition of two beds and a bathroom. While he takes the bus on personal bicycling tours on occasion, most of the time it serves as the shop's sole marquee. "It's a good landmark," Brock says.

The vehicle has a definite British feel—from its sliding doors to its wrong-sided driver's seat—and with good reason. It's a 1965 Bristol Lodekka, a model that served on the Western National bus line in Southwest England, and the front still indicates that it served on route 012. The buses were shipped from the United Kingdom to Ft. Lauderdale in the 1970s and then driven to Denver and sold to a number of companies for use on tours.

Brock keeps in contact with other Bristol Lodekka owners and has discovered some creative uses for the buses. A bar owner in Half Moon Bay employs one as the area of his bar where his customers can actually smoke.

When Brock got his hands on the bus four years ago—a friend sold it to him at a good discount—there was a lot of work that had to be done. "It used to be gray," says his 11-year-old daughter, Claire.

"And it wasn't even automotive paint," Brock adds. A Serbian immigrant hand-lettered the Cupertino Bike Shop logo on the exterior, which Brock matched to the shop's colors.

In addition to the interior renovations, which brought in new seating for 14, space for two mattresses and a small shower, Brock also revamped the engine and tweaked the hood slightly to fit the new 270-horsepower monster. "The original top speed was 48 miles per hour, but now, you can get it up to 71," he says. He also keeps another Bristol Lodekka his daughter calls "the organ donor bus" in Davis to supply spare parts if necessary.

While he can't use the bus for commercial purposes, it has space for several dozen bicycles on the lower deck, and he has taken it on bicycling trips with his friends. "It made it over the Carson Pass," Brock says. It's also served as support during races and events like Team in Training for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society—and on field trips with Claire's classes from the Waldorf School of the Peninsula in Los Altos.

She wanted to hold a sleepover birthday party on the bus, but was dissuaded after realizing there was no electricity to power her stereo. But Claire, 11, still comfortably bounds around the bus, pointing out that while most people prefer sitting in the first row of seats on the upper deck, the best view is actually from the rear window, which conveniently opens up. "You can throw things at people," she says with a giggle.

But most of the time, the bus stays parked in the lot about 100 yards from the bike shop, where the best view is of the trees planted in the median strips. Brock says there was a bit of controversy among his neighbors in the shopping center when he first situated his bus in the lot. But as the third-largest tenant in terms of square footage, Brock didn't have the visibility of a marquee that his fellow tenants did. And while some complaints centered on parking, the bus barely takes up four spaces in the compact section of the lot.

That still doesn't ensure that it's always visible, however. "We use it when we give directions, but there's always somebody who never sees it," Brock says.

Brock, who lives in Santa Clara, took over the bike shop in 1989 to augment his passion for bicycling—among other competitions, he won fifth place at the 2002 U.S. Masters National Road Cycling Championships. His interest in relics of the past extends to bicycling as well, with a personal collection of vintage bikes that date back to 1946. Customers at the bike shop can view items from his collection, such as Greg Lemond's first professional road bike, and the shop's website displays several old photographs under the heading of "Vance's Vintage."

The shop also stores a miniature version of the Bristol Lodekka, outfitted with British signs and painted in the original green. Instead of sprawling across a parking lot, however, this bus fits in the palm of your hand.