The museum took the car, sold by Dr Chamberlain for an undisclosed sum, in a ceremony watched by family, lawyers, academics, journalists and others who had fought to overturn the convictions of Michael and Lindy Chamberlain for Azaria’s death.

Looking at the car, still with the number plates 4ENSIC that he had chosen with deliberate  irony,  Dr Chamberlain, from Cooranbong, said he knew the museum would take even better care of it than he did.

The issue of how Azaria died  was settled two years ago by coroner Elizabeth Morris’s finding that a dingo had, in fact,  snatched  her from the family tent at Ayers Rock on August 17, 1980.

The Torana, which  was stripped to its shell in the inquiries that followed Azaria’s disappearance, had been sought by the museum to add to its  array of artefacts, clothing, letters, photographs and film about the story.

Dr Chamberlain, watched by his daughter Zahra,  son Aidan, daughter-in-law Amber, and first grandchild, Amelia, nine months,  said: “The case represents a gross injustice but also freedom of forensic science, which eventually saw Lindy and I exonerated in 1988.

“It was one of the worst perversions of justice and forensic science in Australian history. ... 

“We had lived by the credo that if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear. It was dead wrong.”

The first coroner, Denis Barritt, found in February 1981 that a dingo  was responsible, but  later that year, a British pathologist, Professor James Cameron, advanced the view that there had been a murder. During a new investigation, the  Torana was seized and Sydney forensic biologist Joy Kuhl claimed there was baby’s blood in the car and on  possessions.

Royal commissioner Justice Trevor Morling found in 1987 that a reasonably instructed jury in possession of further evidence would have been compelled to acquit. The royal commission revealed there was no blood in the car, or on the Chamberlains’ possessions.

Stuart Tipple, the  lawyer who had doggedly represented the Chamberlains for years,  said: “Our system of justice failed, but people power revealed the truth.”

And John Bryson, author of  Evil Angels, said there had always been voices of reason in the judiciary. Justice James Muirhead, the trial judge, had been so appalled by the jury’s guilty verdict that he had gone on to campaign against trial by jury.

Dr Ray Watterson, a justice campaigner from Newcastle University, said the dingo was now recognised as the apex predator that it had always been. His students had found 200 cases of dingo-human incidents, some fatal, in Australia in the 20 years since Azaria disappeared.

Museum director Dr Mathew Trinca said: “This story should never be forgotten by Australians. I think this collection will help the process.”