<With the advent of the B767 and later the majority of Transports utilized 'Fail operational'autopilot autoland....>
Fail operational was certainly available on the L1011, long before the B767.
Anyone who has flown the 'ole Lockheed tri-motor will recognize that it simply sets the standard by which others hope to achieve, with autolands...CATIII or not.
Only the RAF seemed to have a 'slight difficulty' with the L10...and one pilot in particular.
And...Pigboat remembers well.
The French postal service did indeed perform CATIII with F.27's...manually flown as I recall.