Two Swedish shipping companies, Trans Oil Shipping and Rex Shipping, decided to form a new company for providing car/passenger ferry services between Sweden, England and the Netherlands. The new Tor Line (an abbreviation of Trans Oil and Rex) ordered the construction of two state-of-the-art ferries from Lübecker Flender-Werke in West Germany. These entered service on the Gothenburg—Immingham—Amsterdam route in 1966 and 1967 as and , respectively. Meanwhile, Bratt-Götha and the Dutch KNSM (Koninklijke Nederlandsche Stoomboot-Maatschappij) joined as shareholders (25% each). Tor Line's main rivals on the Sweden—England route were England-Sweden Line (ESL), a joint service operated by Ellerman's Wilson Line, Swedish Lloyd and Rederi AB Svea. The ESL partner companies had also brought new ships on the route in 1966, but these were slower than the Tor ships, had less modern furnishings and lacked full-height cardecks.