28

A number of times, the Doctor or his companion has been shown riding a motorcycle out of the TARDIS:

Doctor on a scooter
The Idiot's Lantern S02E07 (story 173)

Doctor emerging from Tardis on motorcycle
The Bells of Saint John S07E06 (story 231)

In The Magician’s Apprentice S09E01 (story 251) he is shown to have a Tank "300 years ago" from Clara's time point of reference.

Has the TARDIS been shown to transport items larger than its doorway before?

5
  • Where did the fourth Doctor keep Bessie? It was certainly wider than the door of the TARDIS. Sep 21, 2015 at 5:50
  • Ah, someone else who was wondering where that came from!
    – Sobrique
    Sep 21, 2015 at 15:42
  • In the TV movie, a motorcyclist actually drove into the TARDIS and apparently around the console room before coming back out again. Bessie was always kept on Earth under the care of UNIT when the Doctor was away, but the Third Doctor was apparently able to remove the console from the TARDIS, even though it was lacking a dematerialization circuit. I doubt he did so piece by piece, because he was trying to get it working after the Time Lords exiled him to Earth in the '70s -- or was it the '80s? Jan 30, 2017 at 11:06
  • TARDIS has been materialized inside itself and also it can grow in size.. Logical inference can be followed..
    – Ragnarok
    Dec 21, 2017 at 14:05
  • 1
    Reductio ad absurdum - it's always "transporting something larger than its doorway" - it's "bigger on the inside".
    – RDFozz
    Dec 21, 2017 at 19:04

3 Answers 3

34

The short answer is yes, the Doctor has demonstrated at least three ways in which out-sized objects could be transported by the TARDIS

The TARDIS can simply materialise around large objects that needs to be transported and de-materialise just as easily.

  • In the classic Fourth Doctor serial Logopolis, the TARDIS materialised around a police phone box, placing the phone box inside the TARDIS. A similar trick was pulled in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship when Rory's father Brian is taken inside while standing on a ladder.

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Objects touching the outside of the TARDIS can be transported with relative ease

  • We see this happen in an incident where Captain Jack was transported through time while lashed to the outside of the TARDIS in Utopia:

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The TARDIS can grow and shrink to allow large objects to be taken through the main door

  • In the episode Flatline, the TARDIS is shown to be transporting something substantially larger than its doorway, namely the Doctor.

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  • It stands to reason that the TARDIS can be expanded to create a doorway large enough to fit a tank, something we see happen in The Name of the Doctor when the 'Dimensional Dampeners' on the TARDIS begin to malfunction and it swells to alarming size.

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Re: Tanks

  • Although it's not strictly on-topic for the question, you may also want to note that the Doctor has unlimited access to miniaturisation technology. He could simply shrink a tank, pop it under his fez and grow it when he gets to the other end of his journey.

  • Of course, we're assuming he didn't just take the tank apart, fit it through the door in pieces and rebuild it when he got to the other side.

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  • 2
    The expansion of the TARDIS seen in "The Name of the Doctor" was due to a malfunction, I think that if it ordinarily needed to transport something larger it would use a different solution, namely materializing around the object without needing to get it through the door, which was used to get a real police phone box inside the TARDIS at the start of the Fourth Doctor story "Logopolis", and was also used in the new series to get Amy and Rory (and Rory's dad on a ladder) into the TARDIS without using the door in "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship".
    – Hypnosifl
    Sep 20, 2015 at 14:54
  • Just to add to this, we also know the TARDIS can dematerialize around objects and leave them behind, so the door or the outside aren't the only options.
    – Radhil
    Sep 20, 2015 at 15:05
  • 1
    Of course if the TARDIS was fully functional it could simply take the form of - uh - whatever kind of buildings you park tanks in. Military garage? Whatever. Luckily, the Doctor seems to have plenty of other options. I guess that's why he's never got around to fixing the fault. :-) Sep 20, 2015 at 21:17
  • For what it's worth - in Flatline, the dimensions of the TARDIS were also due to a "malfunction" - creatures siphoning dimensions. While the interior and exterior of the TARDIS are essentially separate objects and share separate dimensions, I'm not entirely sure that the exterior of the TARDIS can actually grow and shrink at will. The only way to do this would be to change the exterior from a police box to something else, but I think that function's been broken for a while...
    – user14952
    Sep 21, 2015 at 5:13
  • 1
    @NikolaiDante - Serves you right for trying to read on a tiny screen :-P
    – Valorum
    Sep 21, 2015 at 8:14
14

Richard gave many good examples in his answer, but he missed the biggest one.

In the episode Journey's End the TARDIS transports the whole Earth back to its original position.

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  • 3
    Yeah, but could he have transported the Earth through time by dragging it like that? In The Satan Pit, he also tows a rocket away from a black hole with the TARDIS, but again, without any indication that he could have moved it to another time.
    – Mr Lister
    Sep 20, 2015 at 16:31
  • 4
    Unknown, but the question is only about transporting objects, not necessary about transporting them through time.
    – user47812
    Sep 20, 2015 at 16:39
  • 3
    @ThomasWeinbrenner - I rather thought that "through time" was implicit in the question, otherwise the answer would be 'drag them behind the TARDIS on a tow-rope'
    – Valorum
    Sep 20, 2015 at 21:40
  • I think that this should have just been a comment or an edit to the other answer. Sep 21, 2015 at 4:11
  • 1
    @MrLister - Since the motorbikes live in the TARDIS, I'd imagine they've traveled all over time and space.
    – Valorum
    Sep 21, 2015 at 8:13
1

This isn't form "before", but I thought it was worthy of being mentioned.

The biggest object in TARDIS that I remember from 2005 series is... a star, on a verge of collapse to a black hole.

enter image description here

It appears in the 11th Doctor episode Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS.

It's called the Eye of Harmony - a power device. The Doctor describes it thus:

DOCTOR: The Eye of Harmony. Exploding star in the act of becoming a black hole. Time Lord engineering. You rip the star from its orbit, suspend it in a permanent state of decay.

Transcript from Chakoteya


To append Valorum's point about tanks, a video from series 9, episode 1 - The Magician's Apprentice):

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