Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
In a drive to attract customers, and attention, marketers at the Tampa Bay Federal Credit Union tried tooling around in a gussied-up PT Cruiser. But it didn't have enough advertising oomph.
So Eddie Hamp, the credit union's senior vice president of marketing, decided to crank things up a notch. Up, as in upstairs.
Now, credit union reps are appearing at car shows and other events in a 1982 British Leyland double-decker bus imported from England and converted into a branch-on-wheels.
The 31-foot-long vehicle can fit 12 people downstairs and 30 upstairs. The bus is equipped with two account stations, a bathroom, a TV and surround sound system, a refrigerator and a sink. Since it's wired and equipped with phones, visitors can open accounts, make deposits - in short do much of what they would in a regular branch.
The credit union paid $30,000 in a package deal to buy the bus in England, partly renovate it there and ship it by cargo transport to the Jacksonville port. Factoring in the rest of the renovation, including electrical upgrades and the addition of an ATM, Hamp figures the grand total was about $125,000.
The Leyland isn't tooling around the bay area in its full glory: It was cut down in height from 14 feet, 5 inches to 13 feet, 6 inches.
The I-275 overpass near the credit union's main office, Hamp said, is 14 feet, 4 inches. "You have a different awareness" of such details, he added, "when you're driving a double-decker bus around town."