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The Round Australia Trial was a motorsport rallying or rally raid event that was run on multiple occasions between 1953 and 1998. The theme of the event was to stage a rally which circumnavigated Australia. Its early years were tremendously popular as the roads linking large portions of the country, particularly west of Adelaide, were not in good condition. Automobile manufacturers enthused over the event as it provided a particularly test event for their products, proving their cars were able to stand up to whatever conditions remote Australia could provide. Early editions of the event were heroic tests and were front-page fodder for the newspapers of the era.
By the 1960s, interest had waned as circuit racing, particularly the Bathurst 500 and the Tasman Series, would come to dominate Australian motorsport. A revival event in 1979 won by superstar touring car driver Peter Brock proved popular, but was not repeated until 16 years later in 1995. Interest in a new event continues to appear from time to time, sometimes as a rally, sometimes as a historic event for period cars, although the Australian Safari and the Finke Desert Race retain positions as the toughest off-road event in the country.