Page "Aviation Traders" Paragraph 7

Subsequent conversion work proved more successful.

Some Avro Tudor airliners were fitted with large freight doors to carry cargo for Air Charter Ltd ( one of ATL's sister companies ) as Supertraders.

Twenty-one Douglas DC-4 airliners were converted into car ferries as the ATL-98 Carvair, a major task that included replacing the aircraft's original forward fuselage with an extended version incorporating the flight-deck above the cargo hold and a side-hinged nose door through which five cars could be loaded, one at a time, by means of a mobile, ground-based " scissor " lift.

Twenty-five passengers could be accommodated in the remaining rear fuselage whose cross-section remained unaltered.

The fin was enlarged to offset the destabilising effect of the enlarged forward fuselage.

Many of these piston-engined Carvair aircraft were operated from Southend Airport on short routes across the English Channel or North Sea.

The eventual provision of competing fast ferry services by large hovercraft ( the SR. N4 ) meant that the age of the car-carrying airliner that commenced with the Bristol Freighter concluded with the Carvair.