Ever since I saw Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, I've loved the sequence in which Harry is picked up by the Knight bus and it's crazy kooky driver, Ernie, the hysterically laughing Shrunken Head, and the conductor, Stan Shunpike. I've seen the movie countless times since and still love that opening scene. When I head Lego was making Harry Potter sets, I needed to get my hands on a Knight Bus. Having it here now I can honestly say I'm not dissappointed in any way!

Box and Instructions

The box shows the Knight Bus speeding through the London streets. Its pretty nice and will definately catch your eye. The back shows off the model and such. The Instructions were perfect and easy to follow.

Minifigures

We get 3 minifigures in this set, and I have to say, I'm quite impressed by the crew of the Knight Bus!

Before we get to the entertaining characters of the Knight Bus, we must start once again with the character that I now I am quite tired of-Harry Potter! I can't believe I'm saying this, but after so many Harry Potter's and really only two variants (street clothes and Hogwarts uniform) he is getting a bit tiring. This Harry Potter comes with his street clothes and is what you would expect from any set.

Stan Shunpike is a great character. He is the young man who welcomes Harry to the Knight Bus. He is great because he is mostly all purple, and truthfully, we don't get a plethora of purple figures. His face has a bit of wrinkles on his cheeks and black eyes. He comes with a purple conductor hat, and has a very detailed torso. It has a tie and a sort of camera looking thing. (maybe it is a camera, I'm not sure) He also has a sort of satchel printed on that stretches around for some back printing. He has non printed pants that are all purple also. I personally love this figure and think he's quite spectacular.

Ernie, the driver of the Knight Bus is also a spectacular character. His hair is grey and wavy and adds a lot of character to him. His face has lots of grey facial hair, and has his glasses printed on, similar to Harry Potter. His torso has a tie and a vest. His vest is also printed on his back. His vest has a surprising amount of detail, and is pretty cool. He has plain, non printed brown pants. He along with Stan are some of the best figures I've gotten in a long time!

The Build

Building the Knight Bus was a really fun Build. You build it in 3 sections, and attatch them all at the end. It took about an hour to build, and was quite enjoyable. It was also very easy. To sum up the build, I'd call it one thing...fun!

The Completed Model

Once I built this, I was very impressed by the set. My expectations were exceeded! Its a great model just to look at! The bottom layer has a drivers seat where Ernie sits. It has a printed shrunken head piece to mimic the shrunken head who constantly is laughing and cracking jokes through the scene. The back has a seat where Harry sits, and the very back has the area where Stan stands and hangs on. The middle section has two more platforms, one of which has a seat to look out. Other then that the middle sections doesn't have that much to look out. The top layer is exactly the same, except that it has a chandelier that moves as you drive. The actual car is pretty fun to play with, and its easy enough to break the sections apart to play, but not so easy that it breaks when your driving it around. 35.00 is a pretty good price for this set, but 30 would have been a little better of a price. Overall, it's a very great, detailed and awesome set!

Summary

Overall, the Knight Bus is a spectacular set that includes some great minifigures, a nice model, and some fun playability for a decent price. Any fan of Harry Potter in the least should pick this spectacular edition to the Harry Potter line up! Take it away Ernie!

This set is essentially a remake of the first Knight Bus, but that's ok with me, as I never owned the first one. So let's take it away.

Building Experience:

This set's build is really fun. The purple pieces are lovely to play with. They look so rich and luxurious, and it's really fun to see the bus stack up in front of you, unveiling each new feature with every layer. Building this set did what a Lego set should. It put me in a good mood. 5/5

Minifigs:

This set has three minifigs, and they are all relatively high quality. The Harry fig is a repeat in every way, so that's not very exciting, but if he was wearing different clothes it really wouldn't be movie accurate. Ernie and Stan on the other hand are both totally new and fun. Ernie has a great face and he looks just like you think he would in the movies. A mark of a great minifig is personality; when you look at the fig you should be able to feel like you could have a conversation with them, and Ernie certainly has that. Stan is pretty cool too in his swanky purple vest and cap. Normally I'm not a fan of the cap piece but on Stan it works great. His face is a little off though, it's too mature and not pimply enough, and I always feel like he should be holding something. He's still a good fig overall though. 4/5

Parts:

This set is nothing but good parts. I love love love all the purple pieces. They look so incredible, and they aren't very common. There's even a purple archway, of the 6x1x1 variety. Also, there's an owl, one of the newer kind with printing on it. 5/5

Features:

There are a couple of really fun little doohickeys in this set. There is a great swinging chandelier inside the bus, and the bed on the first level is not attached, so that when the bus stops suddenly it slides forward, chandelier swinging and crashing about overhead. It's great fun to put Harry on the bed and see him flip off when you stop the bus rolling. It might not be much, but it's all you can expect, really, and it adds great character and feeling to the set. 5/5

Atmosphere:

I've alluded to it already, but the whimsical quality and rich purple hues of this set make it fun to look at. It really puts you in a magical mood, which is exactly what you look for out of a Harry Potter set. It makes you feel as though you could walk out the door right now and hitch a ride to the Leaky Cauldron. 5/5

Overall:

This is one of the better sets I've gotten in a long time. Just looking at it makes you happy, thanks to the simplicity of the brilliant purple and the quality of the figs and features. 24/25 or A+

I got this set literally 2 hours ago at Barnes & Noble since my friend gave me gift card.This set has way,way more than 150 purple pieces, which a lot of you MOCers will enjoy.I am only 10,and keep all of my sets not used in MOCs.This set is fantastic and very much worth the money,since you get 3 minifigures,2 EXCLUSIVE and the other the cheapest way to get Harry in his dark-blue jacket and wearing black pants.For all of you sticker-haters out there,you will be glad to know that there are only 2 in the whole set.

Box/Instructions

The box is very, very, very, very, very, very small for the amount of pieces.I compared it to my Geonosian Cannon box and it isn't even double the size,for more than double the pieces.Anyway,it shows Ernie Prang with the assistance of the Shrunken Head driving the Knight Bus speedily driving down the lamp-lit streets of London as seen in The Prisoner of Azkaban. In the bottom right corner is a piece of parchment made to look like it was stamped on to the box.LEGO just knows us so well don't they?THEY PUT THE NAMES OF THE MINIFIGURES IN FRENCH!!The top of my box says it was made in Enfield, Connecticut.Apparently,Stan Shunpike is also known as Stan Rocade and Ernie Prang is also known as Ernie Danlmur.

The back is a piece of parchment displaying the set features, which all there is is the bed moving and the floors coming apart for easy play.The minifigure used in the"actual size" display is everyone in the set, but I'm getting the feeling that they shrunk down Harry's wand.Just because I want to point this out, the side of the advertises LEGO Harry Potter:YEARS 5-7

The instructions had no mistakes and yet again,no missing pieces.

Parts

You guessed it,purple paradise.you get 3 purple arches that are 6 studs long or wide, however you want to be,which,in any color are still pretty rare.You also get 18 purple 4-stud window frames and 6 2-stud purple window frames.You also get 26 purple 1-by-2 stud purple bricks and the rest you can see by looking in the parts list in the digital instructions on Lego.com.

Minifigures

You get as mentioned,3 in this set.You get the all-new, redesigned Stan Shunpike,which has his face,it really looks weird and separates him from his age. He looks like he's 50. Although his torso looks good, has some back printing(his sash) and I'm guessing that the legs could be useful somewhere else, even though I am not a MOCer.

Next you get the brand new Ernie Prang.There isn't much to say about him. The 1 I own is the 3rd one I've seen in my life,since my friends Ashley and Abi brought there's to school and showed me them(yes,girls can be fans of Harry Potter too(although I am not)). He does have back printing, which is just the pattern on his sweater.He has the same hair piece used on Rolanda Hooch and Count Dooku.He has a lot of facial hair and then wrinkles and his glasses,so you can not really see his skin.

Now is Harry,in his regular blue jacket.This is the cheapest set to get him in but I got Diagon Alley,so this isn't my first Harry in this outfit.Next,I want to point him out even though he is a minifigure,is the Shrunken Head.he has very nice markings,and he really looks like the Shrunken Head.It's a sand green cylinder brick that has the X-eyes,LEGO tried to print his Bob Marley hair,but didn't do so good.They should have just given him a Snape and left it at that.He does have the little circles on his face,and a stitched-up mouth.

The Completed Model

The bus drives really smooth,and whoever designed did his homework when he made it so the bed will go through the first floor of the bus when you drive it to a sudden halt.They also made it so you can take apart the bus and play inside on each floor for this little kiddies.This set is very small for 281 pieces, but I am not complaining.It is only 7 studs wide,which means you can put it in the box built without it falling apart.The chandelier you saw on the box will also swing around n the inside,but because of that,the top two floors only have a seat and a little area for luggage each so the chandelier can hang.

Summary

Overall, I recommend this set if you are a fan of the LEGO Harry Potter universe, like me,or if you are someone at any age who loves vehicles,because this one moves if you accidentally hit your finger on the third floor.For MOCers,go to you local LEGO store right now to get the rare purple pieces.I just was not wild about the price until I actually got it.See you in my next review!

This is the other set that I was able to grab at our local Lego Store down here in Portland Oregon. I built the 4865 first then quickly move along to building this set, I have always wanted to have the old knight bus... and now I have one. :D

The build was actually alright, not really hard and technical but it works and it ends up really fantastic. I have build a bunch of lego card but i do believe the build on the front portion of the Knight Bus is simplistically unique. Not too sure but I think the curved purple lego piece that acts as a bridge for the back tires are new, as well as the brick with two pegs on each side and smooth middle (1x4 piece), that is usually used for the roof and the connecting for the upper decks.

I also love the bed or floor element, that keps sliding back and forth at the Bus moves. What more with the chandelier that swings back and forth, just like in the movies :D . The idea and the execution of the chandelier using usual lego bricks works fantastic for this set. Extra seats for the upper decks are alright but would be fine without them. Just wondering why those seats were not used for the actual driving area?

This set is nothing but awesome and im 100% sure HP fans will love this. Oh and just two small stickers! How can you not love this set.

I missed the first Knight Bus back in 2004 and decided I'd pick up this version of the model. The Knight Bus is one of the few, iconic scenes & vehicles in Harry Potter in that it's a triple decker bus. It's been awhile since I read the books or watched the movies, but this seems a fairly good interpretation in LEGO brick form of the Knight Bus.

Box/Instructions

The box art shows beautifully the Knight Bus moving down a street and is well illustrated what it is you're getting.

The instructions are in booklet form with step-by-step illustrations for building the bus.

Parts

There's a grand total of 257 pieces, many of which are purple elements and thus uncommon and rare outside of this set. There's then a piece for Hedwig, shrunken head piece, a pair of printed tile pieces for socks and a trunk that Harry is hauling onto the bus.

Minifigures

There's a total of three minifigures in this set. Harry Potter who's fairly common and found in almost all of the Harry Potter sets. Stanley Turnpike and Ernie, the driver. Stanley and Ernie are fairly unique to this set.

The build and completed model

The Bus is built in three parts and it also is built in those three parts so you can access each of the different levels of the Knight Bus. Even the very top of the bus' roof comes off. Which compared to much older models from the 80's is a very welcomed feature.

It also follows a very easy, repetitive build for the upper levels that's almost the same. While I wanted to argue about needing more seating inside, much of the space inside is "hollow" so the chandelier can hang down to swing back & forth.

Summary

In the end, I can't help but feel that this set is almost $5 too much and should have been more towards $30 given the overall piece count and minifigures. But when you figure the Harry Potter license and $3 for minifigure, maybe the $35 makes sense.

For those who are fans of Harry Potter and missed the first Knight Bus set or just want a newer version, or those MOCers looking for purple pieces in their collection, this set is well worth it and simply beautiful.

I also like that the Knight Bus has an open ended feel to it as I do believe there are a couple places in the books it shows up at so you don't have to be "stuck" playing just one time era of the books over another.