The championship was first held from 1960 to 1963 under Appendix K regulations, catering for modified production Grand Touring cars, sports cars fitted with roofs, and specials. The early races were decided over a single event, and the category was discontinued at the end of 1963 as grid numbers declined.
A second era ran from 1982 to 1985 after the reintroduction of Group A Sports Cars displaced Group D Production Sports Cars from the Australian Sports Car Championship. The revived Australian GT Championship offered a home to both Group D machinery and Sports Sedans, producing an eclectic mix of European and American racing cars alongside Australian-built specials. Porsche 935s dominated early, with 1980 Formula One World Champion Alan Jones winning the 1982 title in a Porsche Cars Australia entry. Subsequent titles went to Rusty French in 1983 and Allan Grice and Bryan Thomson in 1984 and 1985 respectively, the latter two sharing a DeKon Chevrolet Monza fitted with a 6.0-litre V8 reported to produce 600 bhp. By 1985 the GT field had been largely displaced by Sports Sedans and the category was wound up, with Porsche competitors eventually finding a dedicated home in the Porsche Cup.
The Australian GT Championship was revived in 2005 following the disbandment of the Australian Nations Cup Championship, adopting the FIA GT3 regulations that were also in use in the FIA GT3 European Championship. The Australian Porsche Drivers Challenge was merged into the new series at the same time. Series regulations typically required cars to be two to three years old to contain costs, and competitors were seeded and penalised to limit the influence of full professionals.
Growth was assisted by the Bathurst 12 Hour's conversion from a production car race to a GT event, which raised the profile of GT3 machinery nationally. Longer-distance races including the Phillip Island 101 and the Highlands 101 in New Zealand were added to the calendar over time. In 2016 an Australian GT Trophy Series was introduced as a support category for older-specification cars, and GT4 machinery was integrated into the main championship from 2018.
In 2020 Australian Racing Group and SRO Motorsports Group jointly assumed management of the category, renaming it GT World Challenge Australia to align with SRO's international GT World Challenge brand. Racing was incorporated into ARG's SpeedSeries event weekends. SRO became the exclusive organiser for the 2024 season, at which point the main championship became exclusively for SRO-specification GT3 cars, with GT4-class racing separated into a standalone GT4 Australia series.
From 2025, following the conclusion of the SpeedSeries, SRO Motorsports Group began staging its own dedicated event weekends for GT World Challenge Australia, with support categories including GT4 Australia and Radical Cup Australia.
The championship has used a wide range of Australian and New Zealand venues across its three eras. Current regular venues as of 2026 include Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit, The Bend Motorsport Park, Queensland Raceway, Sydney Motorsport Park, and the Adelaide Street Circuit, with Hidden Valley Raceway also on the 2026 calendar. Historic venues include Mount Panorama Circuit, Sandown Raceway, Lakeside International Raceway, Calder Park Raceway, and several street circuits in Surfers Paradise and Homebush.
The championship's long and interrupted history reflects the broader patterns of Australian motorsport regulation, where category collapse and regulatory shifts have repeatedly reshaped what cars are eligible. Its current form as GT World Challenge Australia places it within a coherent global GT3 ecosystem, giving Australian competitors and manufacturers access to a series that connects directly with parallel championships in Europe, North America, and Asia.