A handsome aircraft although I sadly never got to fly in one. We lived south of LTN in the 1960's and Autair's three Lizzies (ZS/ZV/ZZ) were daily sights. They made a very distinctive smooth muffled sound on climb-out, quite unlike the throaty roar of a P & W radial such as on the DC6, or the Wrights on the L-749 Connies. They certainly were heavy smokers on start-up, especially in the morning as WHBM describes. I remember a BKS Lizzie virtually fogging out the Queen's Building at LHR one morning with its smoky start. They even left smoke trails on climb-out sometimes!
Re- their early life with BEA, I can recall reading somewhere that BEA were very pleased with the passenger reaction to the Lizzie (not surprising as they replaced Vikings and DC3's) and wished they had ordered more. However, they were rapidly outclassed by the new Viscounts which started arriving only 1 year after the Lizzie entered service.
The amazing Silver Wing flight to Paris seems like a throwback to the same pre-war service operated by Imperial. All that fgourmet food, champagne and fancy service on a 90-minute flight to Paris! It really was a different world back then.
The terrible accident to ZR at LHR in 1968 (due to assymetric flap deployment and ensuing loss of control) was so sad; I remember it well. Some good people lost their lives that day. As someone else has mentioned, Arthur Whitlock's book has some great accounts of flying the Lizzie during his time at BKS, and includes the ZR incident.
For a piston engined airliner the Lizzie had a pretty long service life, from 1952 to 1969 or thereabouts. I missed the Autair aircraft when they were repaced by those noisy One-Elevens in 1968.