Here are eight surprising cars that helped save the world in Doctor Who

The Whomobile
A bullet-proof Vauxhall Corsa
Citroën 2CV
Anti-grav bike
A 1956 Vespa
Peugeot 307
Lots of Land Rovers
Bessie

This month, the world’s longest-running science-fiction television show is recognising an impressive milestone. Doctor Who, BBC One’s flagship family show, is celebrating its 60th anniversary with three specials and the return of David Tennant as the titular Time Lord.

And Whovians around the world are also getting very excited for the next actor to play the Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa.

While the TARDIS is renowned for crossing the boundaries of space and time (and possibly doubling up as a mobile self-storage unit), Doctor Who certainly doesn’t ignore more down-to-earth and mundane transport such as the good old fashioned, down-to-earth car.

So, let’s take a look at the Doctor’s four-wheeled friends who helped save the world over the last sixty years.

Words: Cameron K McEwan
The Whomobile

Name’s a bit on the nose, but when was Doctor Who ever subtle?

Saying that, it was never actually referred to as the ‘Whomobile’ on screen, instead coined by Third Doctor actor Jon Pertwee – a car enthusiast whose first love was a ‘Brescia’ Bugatti and no stranger to the British Automobile Racing Club celebrity events of the 1950s.

Resembling a futuristic mini-hovercraft, the vehicle was commissioned by Pertwee himself and, during interviews promoting the show, he dubbed it the ‘Whomobile’. The name kinda stuck.

The actor once boasted on BBC children’s show Blue Peter that it was in fact road-legal and could reach speeds of over 100mph. It also featured a small television screen up front. Naughty.

(For any Whovians still reading, the Whomobile, aka The Doctor’s Car, appeared in the 1974 stories, Invasion of the Dinosaurs and Planet of the Spiders.)
A bullet-proof Vauxhall Corsa

Defying all known motoring logic, Tenth Doctor companion Martha Jones (played by Freema Agyeman) snapped up a Corsa B despite the existence of something called ‘Fiesta’. Still, it came with some very unusual modifications.

In the 2007 instalment The Sound Of Drums, Martha’s car managed to deflect a barrage of machine gun fire from numerous bad guys with just a few sparks and not a dent in sight, never mind an exploding car (in fairness, the rear window did smash). Thankfully, her passengers David Tennant and John Barrowman were also unharmed.
Citroën 2CV

A classic from the late Forties, two of these genuine icons were used by staff on the inadequately named Fortress Island which held the Doctor’s nemesis, The Master, captive (spoiler: he escaped). The same story, The Sea Devils (1972), would also feature a hovercraft and a Ford Cortina in a moment of absolute peak Seventies motoring Britain.

Another Citroën 2CV would be later be helmed by fan favourite Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in the 1989 outing, Battlefield.

007 film fans will also note that Sir Roger Moore proclaimed the Citroën 2CV as his favourite Bond car on the Top Gear special, Fifty Years of Bond Cars (it popped up in For Your Eyes Only).
Anti-grav bike

Ok, technically this isn’t a car. And by ‘technically’ we mean ‘it’s absolutely not a car at all’. It’s a motorbike! An anti-gravity motorbike!

In the 2012 episode, The Bells of Saint John, Matt Smith’s Doctor showed off his motoring skills by driving his bike up the side of the Shard in some kind of Time Lords for Justice stunt. He also claimed that he used it in the 2074 Anti-Grav Olympics.

The bike ended up with his buddy Clara (Jenna Coleman) who used it to commute to her teaching job whenever she wasn’t fending off those dastardly Cybermen. ‘Comfortable, pillowy ride quality,’ she never said.
A 1956 Vespa

Ok, this is the last non-car on this list of cars. Honest. But this one’s pretty damn cool.

David Tennant, also pretty cool, rocked the moped with an equally stylish Billie Piper sitting on the back as the couple hit London in 1953 (pretty naughty of him bringing future transport but we’ll let him off as the Doctor was intending to land in 1956). Due to the vehicle being fiendishly difficult to ride, stunt doubles were used for any shots of them moving.
Peugeot 307

The 2002 European Car of the Year did actually save the world. Donna Noble (Catherine Tate) owned a dark blue version and, famously, in the episode titled Turn Left, she used the car to turn… right! Only kidding. She turned left.

By doing so, she changed time and saved the Doctor, the world and, indeed, the whole universe. Sadly, her power could not extend to making the 307 desirable.
Lots of Land Rovers

During the early to mid 1970s, you could barely go through an episode of Doctor Who without the classic off-roaders making an appearance. In fact, Second Doctor (played by Patrick Troughton), first drove one in a 1968 adventure with the Cybermen. And his two successors, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, would also sit behind the wheel of this iconic British brand in later years. Likely tired from the effort of piloting an old Land Rover, one suspects.

It was also the vehicle of choice of the Time Lord’s Earth-based chums, UNIT (originally United Nations Intelligence Taskforce but now Unified Intelligence Taskforce) – helping to save the world on a weekly basis. Whether they saved the rear from rusting has yet to be confirmed.
Bessie

This glorious beauty may look like it hails from the dawn of the 20th century but it was, in fact, the chassis of a quite mundane 1954 Ford Popular with a four-seater Siva Edwardian body popped on top (they were readily available as replica kits for DIY car enthusiasts who liked to live in the past).

In Doctor Who, Bessie started off under the ownership of the Third Doctor, played by the aforementioned car-loving Jon Pertwee, when he was stuck on Earth for a few years having been banished by the Time Lords (though we suspect BBC budgets may have had something to do with it pausing his intergalactic travel).

During its time on the show, the yellow roadster also appeared alongside Tom Baker and Sylvester McCoy’s Doctors and journeyed to London, an anti-matter universe and even Wales.