Knight bus to the rescue

Last week, I wrote about my initial impressions of the new Harry Potter sets revealed to be available from 1 June. Little information about 75957 Knight Bus was available, so that got left out. Finally, I’ve had time to put some reflections about this set down on paper.

With 403 parts and a price of US$39.99 / EUR39.99, it sits in the middle of the five sets. I was firstly quite underwhelmed. The 2011 version (set 4866) was a pretty good representation of the bus (see right photo below) and from a quick look, the 75957 set (left photo below) looked very similar giving little new in comparison.

But the set has started to grow a bit on me. It has 33% more parts than its predecessor and the side-by-side comparison above shows the overall shape is quite an improvement, and it’s somewhat larger too. I also like that the side opens, to allow kids easier access to the interior for play.

There are three minifigures: Harry Potter, the conductor Stan Shunpinke and bus driver Ernie Prang. All look great as we have come to expect these days, but are not really much better than the 2011 model.

It would have been a good opportunity to add a small model of (part of) Privet Drive (the bus picked him up from nearby in the Prisoner of Azkaban). However, the Harry Potter Build your own adventure book coming out later this year will give ideas of how to build your own Privet Drive model as per example page from the publisher.

Typically one set of each series ends up as exclusive to one particular retailer in each country. I assume this may be the set, given the number differs from the others.

Overall, though the shape is more accurate than the previous version, this set is quite low on my priority list of sets to buy, already having the 2011 set. If I hadn’t, it would have been a must-have, like most of the other sets in the 2019 release.