Review: 41759 Heartlake City Bus
Posted by MeganL,
After the exciting events covered by the news in 41749 Newsroom Van, it's time to turn to a slightly more mundane activity, 41759 Heartlake City Bus. Mundane or not, this is the first time I remember a bus being included in the Friends world, and it's a welcome addition. I do like how the Friends world is expanding to more realistic scenarios.
Summary
41759 Heartlake City Bus, 480 pieces.
£49.99 / $49.99 / €54.99 | 10.4p/10.4c/11.5c per piece.
Buy at LEGO.com »
Heartlake City's first bus - functional but expensive
- Colourful bus stop
- Accessible bus
- Diverse minidoll representation
- Love Zoe's hair!
- Feels expensive
The set was provided for review by LEGO. All opinions expressed are those of the author.
Inside the box there are four numbered bags, an instruction book and a sticker sheet. The stickers include references to several other Friends sets from this year, which I like.
Minidolls
There are three minidolls in this set. First is Zoe, the bus driver. Zoe is wearing a very smart navy blue uniform with gold accents on the lapels and pockets, along with a gold tie. I particularly like her hair, which is dyed a rust colour on one side.
The Friends representative in this set is Paisley, wearing a purple shirt with a gold guitar motif over top of her typical bell bottom pants. The third minidoll is Stanley, and it's good to see another representation of the older generation. Stanley has mobility challenges, so he has a scooter to get around.
All three minidolls have accessories - Zoe has the (what feels to be) omnipresent Guble Bubble, Paisley is carrying her phone plus the book she had in 41740 Aliya's Room, and Stanley has his scooter, with a basket on the front in which he's carrying a bouquet of flowers.
The completed model
The first part of the build is a bus stop - and a very colourful one it is, too. I like the flowers on the top of the bus stop, and particularly like the rainbow-coloured bricks on the back wall. A sticker shows the map of the bus route in Heartlake City. There's a nozzle indicating that this is a charging station as well as a bus stop. A handy umbrella is present in case any bus patrons need it in the case of inclement weather.
You just never know who you might meet there. Bus stops attract all kinds of hangers-on.
(Note: hangers-on sloths not included in this set.)
Onto the main build: the bus! Like all vehicles in Heartlake City, this is an electric vehicle. There are lots of windows on the bus, as is typical for most municipal buses. There's a rotating sign at the top that indicates where the bus is going. There are four signs: School, Market, Unity Street, and Hospital. Considering the first three of those places have been featured in sets this year, this may foreshadow a new hospital for Heartlake next year.
Each side of the bus shows large ads for local stores: the first as an ad for 41729 Organic Grocery Store, and the second for the Design shop in 41732.
In a nifty feature, one side of the bus opens up, allowing for greater access into the bus. There's space for a few minidolls inside, with the middle area providing space for Stanley's scooter.
An accessible ramp is available on the other side of the bus, through the double doors. Stanley has no problems using the public transportation in Heartlake City, though that's a pretty big bump from the top of the ramp to get into the bus (and vice versa). The ramp slides neatly in the floorboards and provides no issues for travel.
I find the shape of the bus a bit blocky, but most buses are, and keeping with that shape allowed the designer to make the most use of space.
Overall thoughts
I love that the Friends team is diversifying the settings for the Friends, and having something like a bus with bus stop is so charming! The story along with the set shows Paisley getting more comfortable with social interactions, and Zoe and Stanley look to be great companions. I love Zoe's hair, and I welcome the addition of Stanley to Heartlake City's senior citizen ranks.
The bus stop is colourful and cute, as is the bus. I hope the sign is foreshadowing a hospital set this year. Haters of the Friends line will quibble about the pink accents, but I don't mind having them around once in a while.
My big complaint about the set is the price (480 pieces, $49.99). The price per piece ratio isn't bad, but while building, it just didn't feel like a $50 set to me. This is likely because I just reviewed 41749 Newsroom Van, which ~30 fewer pieces for $20 less.
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31 comments on this article
Always a fan of LEGO buses - it feels like we don’t get very many of them. In most US cities they’re the only available form of mass transit since in the post-WWII period our society had the (s)brilliant(/s) idea move to an internal combustion engine based transportation network.
Being Friends, I’m assuming this is an electric bus. Overall, this looks like a fun little set.
41395 and 41106 are buses, though certainly neither could be considered mundane or public transport.
@WemWem said:
"Always a fan of LEGO buses - it feels like we don’t get very many of them. In most US cities they’re the only available form of mass transit since in the post-WWII period our society had the (s)brilliant(/s) idea move to an internal combustion engine based transportation network.
Being Friends, I’m assuming this is an electric bus. Overall, this looks like a fun little set."
If you look closely there's a printed electric charging icon on the front of the bus!
@SDlgo9 said:
" 41395 and 41106 are buses, though certainly neither could be considered mundane or public transport."
I see your 41395 and 41106, and I raise you 71460.
41106 had much better outer proportions, albeit for a coach and not a city bus.
I don't know what it is about current vehicles in Friends, but like with the recent news van I find this totally ugly and would never dream of getting it.
When I compare the first years of Friends sets with what we have today I am glad that my kids grew up with Friends back then and not now. Most modern Friends sets look so totally garish to me. Clashing colours wherever you look.
Ian Malcolm as a doll fig XD
I don't know why, but this bus feels small.
I like the bus stop and the colors. I like the construction of the bus and I love that scooter. It's very cool.
If I could get this for $35/40 I might get two, those changeable destination signs on the front of the bus means you could have two or more going on a circuit.
@MeganL fun fact (although you probably know it anyway...): Zoe's hairpiece was originally used for Daisy Kaboom in the Lego City line.
And I totally agree, that drip of orange makes it one of my favourite female hairpieces. Even though a lot of people would rather link it with the infamous "Speak-with-the-manager-haircut", i still love it.
Is this the first ever LEGO mobility scooter? Good to see it in a set anyway.
@iamkevinwill said:
"Is this the first ever LEGO mobility scooter? Good to see it in a set anyway."
There's also one in 60305 Apartment Building! It debuted in both City and Friends simultaneously.
I want to like it. Who doesn't like a bus with bus stop? But the bus just looks too much like a caricature of one instead of anything remotely like real buses.
And the bus stop -while nice- uses so many parts that could have gone into the actual bus.
What does it for me is the accessibility ramp. Beside the bump mentioned in the review, it also makes for one giant step up to the doors for anyone else. Unless the ramp is deployed everytime the bus stops somewhere...
Buses are low-slung. This doesn't reflect that at all! It looks more like a glass van to me.
And while I like colorfulness to builds, this might be a bit too much for me. The yellow is really overpowering despite the attempt to make the middle dark turquoise with blue and the top white.
@Ridgeheart said:
"Finally, Stan Lee gets some representation in physical Lego-form."
“What's the matter with you kids? You never seen a spaceship before?”
@BaconKing said:
"I don't know why, but this bus feels small."
Maybe it's supposed to be a minibus? It reminds me a little of the electric minibuses they had in Oxford in the 1990s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Oxford_Electric_Bus_Optare_MetroRider.jpg
Makes me regret I never bought 60154
The switching destinations are nice the front windows are a nice build.
The left and right windows are weird with them being at a different "height".
The bus is very small, seems like we've had bigger fast food cars.
Overpriced of course
8404 is still the bus for me.
@mediAFOL said:
" @SDlgo9 said:
" 41395 and 41106 are buses, though certainly neither could be considered mundane or public transport."
I see your 41395 and 41106, and I raise you 71460."
Bringing it back to buses with minidolls, I raise: 70828.
Lego buses. With a 1980s childhood I didn’t get any (too young to get 379, too old for 3662 and something like 9354 was never offered in the shops). My wife eventually bought me 5636 as a Christmas present. I was about 32 at the time, I think it must have been some sort of joke - at least our son born a couple of years later got some hours of play out of it!
I find it interesting that two of the colors of transparent 1x2 bricks in the bus stops rainbow are bricks with tubes, while the others are all the variant without the central tube. I feel like I've usually seen the tubeless ones for transparent colors. Is having the regular brick mold in transparent colors a new thing?
@SuperSlacker said:
"I find it interesting that two of the colors of transparent 1x2 bricks in the bus stops rainbow are bricks with tubes, while the others are all the variant without the central tube. I feel like I've usually seen the tubeless ones for transparent colors. Is having the regular brick mold in transparent colors a new thing?"
Those aren't bricks with tubes, I think they're pairs of 1x1 bricks (instead of a 1x2 brick).
I personally think the new style friends vehicles are too garish in colour and have a over futuristic design that makes them frankly unappealing, as we see in this set and the weird truck in the grocery store… Hope lego realises this and improves vehicle design for future friends sets and not always making them look unrealistic and disproportional
@beige said:
" @vzarmo said:
" @Ridgeheart said:
"Finally, Stan Lee gets some representation in physical Lego-form."
“What's the matter with you kids? You never seen a spaceship before?”
"
That's not at all flattering to Stan"
What? This is a quote from him, when he played a bus driver in the Infinite war movie…
For some reason I misread the title as "Heartbreak City Blues", and I'm now obsessed with the idea of a set about struggling songwriters trying to make sense of the world.
I wonder if they'll ever make a separate City Bus set for City. As far as I know, City only ever had buses included in sets with multiple things, most recently the newest Train Station.
I love friends, but this car is so UGLY
Finally, a minidoll of Stan Lee!
Why does this bus look like the turtle van we never got? especially those nice wheel wells. or is this only my wishes projecting on this set?
@Lyichir said:
" @SuperSlacker said:
"I find it interesting that two of the colors of transparent 1x2 bricks in the bus stops rainbow are bricks with tubes, while the others are all the variant without the central tube. I feel like I've usually seen the tubeless ones for transparent colors. Is having the regular brick mold in transparent colors a new thing?"
Those aren't bricks with tubes, I think they're pairs of 1x1 bricks (instead of a 1x2 brick)."
Yeah LEGO used 1x1 bricks for the transparent orange in both this set and 41708: Roller Disco Arcade , trans-orange 1x2 was never officially in a set.
@Ridgeheart : See now...I was looking him as more 'Rick Sanchez w/a disguise'...but TLG would neeeeeeever do that...:)
@Freddy_Hodson said:
"For some reason I misread the title as "Heartbreak City Blues", and I'm now obsessed with the idea of a set about struggling songwriters trying to make sense of the world."
I would absolutely buy that set!