The origins of the Museum go back at least as far as 1990, when the idea for it first occurred to Liz Martin, who for many years drove Mack prime movers between Adelaide and Darwin. She and others were concerned that "... most trucks from yesteryear were rusting away on rural properties and cattle stations." Following a public meeting in 1992, the Road Transport Historical Society was formed later the same year. On 31 July 1995, the Society officially opened the Museum, then named the National Road Transport Hall of Fame. The then Hall of Fame soon became the host of a national 'truckies reunion', first held in 1992. Initially, the reunions were held annually, with a big one every five years. Martin served as the president of the Society for its first 13 years, and as the Hall of Fame's
CEO from 2000. In 2015, up to 10,000 people were estimated to have turned up to the truckies reunion, which culminated in an hours-long procession of restored trucks along the
Stuart Highway. In February 2018, the government announced that it had commenced an investigation into the affairs of the Hall of Fame, including in relation to compliance with the Associations Act. The announcement prompted Martin to tender her resignation as CEO. However, as of the annual reunion in August that year, not much had become of the proposal, and the government still considered non compliance with regulatory requirements to be a big issue. Attendances at the annual reunion were substantially lower, and some of the owners of trucks on loan to the Hall of Fame had taken them back. In December 2018, the
Alice Springs News reported that Martin and another representative of the Society had travelled to Darwin the previous month for a meeting with a government minister that had been cancelled at the last minute. The government inquiry eventually concluded that as of 2016, the Society had failed to lodge financial statements since 2010, that financial statements had not been available for AGMs held in 2016 and 2017 even though the treasurer or CEO had purported to report on the Society's financial status, and that it appeared that those AGMs had been held without a
quorum. even though it acknowledged that the Society was "in a sound financial position and able to meet its obligations". The management committee was dissolved and Martin resigned, but volunteers managed to keep the Hall of Fame open. At about the same time, the Hall of Fame came to be known as the National Road Transport Museum, and the truckies reunion as the Festival of Transport. ==Exhibitions==