Bessie Bessie , also called Betsy ( COMIC : " Timebenders " ) and , later , Bessie 2 , ( COMIC : " Remembrance " ) was the Third Doctor ' s main mode of transport during his exile on Earth , although other incarnations of the Doctor have also used the car . A canary - yellow Edwardian roadster , she was a key part of his compensation package from UNIT , and the only specific demand he made of the Brigadier when he agreed to be UNIT ' s scientific advisor . ( TV : " Spearhead from Space " ) Despite being beloved by the Doctor , the car was frequently ridiculed and underestimated by the Doctor ' s friends . Heavily tricked out , the car ' s many modifications often bewildered his associates . ( TV : " The Dæmons " , " The Time Monster " , " Battlefield " ) The Brigadier in particular was dismissive of the car ' s abilities and , at least early on , didn ' t even believe it was capable of basic locomotion . ( TV : " The Ambassadors of Death " ) Modifications . The Doctor made several modification s to Bessie during his time at UNIT . These included : an anti - theft force field ( TV : " The Ambassadors of Death " ) , which magnetically trapped anyone attempting to steal Bessie ; a remote control ( TV : " The Dæmons " ) , with which the Doctor could steer the car from a distance , and enabling him to prevent ' s attempt to escape following the events at Devil ' s End ; and a minimum inertia hyperdrive , which allowed him to drive at breakneck speed and still come to a sudden stop without the car ' s occupants being tossed through the windscreen by inertia , which the brakes absorbed . The Doctor made use of this inertia absorption to overtake the Brigadier ' s Land Rover after Lethbridge - Stewart had declined to travel in Bessie in fear of the car ' s reliability . ( TV : " The Time Monster " ) History . When he began his exile on Earth , the Third Doctor ( who had just regenerated and not fully recovered ) stole an antique roadster parked in front of Ashbridge Cottage Hospital to get around . He liked it and while seeing the car returned to its rightful owner , Doctor Beavis , the Brigadier said he thought he could get something like it . The original car was red , unlike Bessie , which was yellow . ( TV : " Spearhead from Space " ) As per his request , the Doctor was donated an old vehicle that he could spruce up into his working transport . It required some tuning up beneath its chassis and adjustments to get the engine working . The Doctor made these repairs in a UNIT garage where he did not wish to be disturbed . Shortly after getting the final repairs in place and attaching his personal license to Bessie , the Doctor took her out for a test drive to Wenley Moor to attend a meeting at an underground nuclear research centre . ( TV : " Doctor Who and the Silurians " ) The Doctor claimed he named Bessie after his assistant , Liz Shaw . ( COMIC : " Change of Mind " ) When the Doctor ' s experiment to bypass his exile by turning the Time - Space Visualiser into a time bridge resulted in history being changed so that Nancy Norton and Brokk conquered the world , UNIT HQ was only protected from the changes in history by the artron energy gathered around the Doctor ' s equipment . When Liz was captured and taken out of the base , the Doctor , the Brigadier , and Sergeants John Benton and Mike Yates travelled out of the base in Bessie , using surplus components from the bridge to provide the car with an artron energy reserve until they could return to the base and restore history ( PROSE : " The Eye of the Giant " ) . Bessie proved instrumental in capturing . When he attempted to steal the Doctor ' s car and make good his escape following the events at Devil ' s End , the Doctor used his remote control to steer the Master back to the waiting UNIT soldiers , who took him into custody . ( TV : " The Dæmons " ) Bessie was briefly pulled into Omega ' s universe during his attempt to capture the Doctor . ( TV : " The Three Doctors " ) Shortly after his companion Jo Grant left him and the third incarnation of the Doctor had temporarily left Earth , his fifth incarnation arrived on Earth and borrowed Bessie while helping UNIT defeat the Xaranti . ( PROSE : " Deep Blue " ) Bessie was also abducted with the Doctor into the Death Zone , where it was heavily damaged by one of the thunderbolts that periodically rained down upon the landscape . ( TV : " The Five Doctors " ) One of the many versions of Clara Oswald created after she entered the Doctor ' s time stream saw the Third Doctor driving in Bessie . She called out to him , but he didn ' t hear her . ( TV : " The Name of the Doctor " ) With his waning interest in affairs at UNIT and Earth , the Fourth Doctor soon lost interest in Bessie , though he did have use for her on several Earthbound adventures with Sarah ( TV : " Robot " , COMIC : " Death Flower " , " Counter - Rotation " , " Mind Snatch " , and others ) . He also used Bessie after Sarah was no longer travelling with him , ( COMIC : " The Fire Feeders " ) and even when Leela had joined him . ( COMIC : " The Devil ' s Mouth " ) It was unclear what happened to Bessie after this early period of the Fourth Doctor ' s life . According to one account , it was simply in storage aboard the TARDIS , seen there as late as the Sixth Doctor ' s travels with Frobisher and Peri . ( COMIC : " Changes " ) Another account had it that the Brigadier had it " put into mothballs " at some point , having realised that the Doctor ' s visits to Earth were becoming more and more infrequent . It was brought out briefly in 1997 as the Brigadier and UNIT worked with the Doctor ' s seventh incarnation to battle Morgaine ; it was briefly criticised by Ace , until the Doctor demonstrated its capabilities . ( TV : " Battlefield " ) . The Eighth Doctor used it while defeating the Mars invasion later into 1997 . ( PROSE : " The Dying Days " ) Fancying himself an " artist , " the Eleventh Doctor decided to " pimp " Bessie by hooking her up to the TARDIS matrix and turning on the random setting which transformed Bessie into a monster truck . Alice Obiefune later struggled to drive the newly transformed Bessie to save the Doctor from a group of possessed individuals under the control of the Talent Scout in 1931 . ( COMIC : " What He Wants . . . " ) He later referred to this " regenerated " Bessie as " Bessie 2 " . ( COMIC : " Remembrance " ) Alistair Gordon Lethbridge - Stewart later gave Bessie to John Benton , partly as a joke as Benton once was a used car salesman . Benton then spent his time fixing Bessie . This proved useful when the Silurian ' s started attacking Kate Stewart and Petronella Osgood in Scafell as it became the only working car , and allowed them to escape . ( AUDIO : " Call to Arms " ) Other information . Technology . Bessie had a built in increased gravity stabiliser . ( COMIC : " The Vortex " ) Registration . Initially , Bessie carried the registration license plate " WHO 1 " . Whether this was intentional — possibly chosen by the Doctor as a reference to the question often asked of his name — or a coincidence is not known . By seeming coincidence , at the time of the Seventh Doctor ' s encounter with Morgaine , the plate had been changed to " WHO 7 " . ( TV : " Battlefield " ) When the Eighth Doctor utilised Bessie during the 1997 invasion of Britain , a UNIT soldier reported the number plate as " Whiskey , Hotel , Oscar 8 , " that is , " WHO 8 " . ( PROSE : " The Dying Days " ) After the Eleventh Doctor transformed Bessie into a monster truck , the number plate once again read " WHO 1 " . ( COMIC : " What He Wants . . . " ; " Remembrance " )