They're intentionally that quick (or slow) and have intentionally skinny tyres so as to give a limited amount of grip allowing you to slide around corners. As you say, it's a purist's car rather than a brute force sledgehammer.
Sliding around is pretty fun and there is zip, but bloody hell do you have to rev the bollocks off it! Suppose that's what it's made of tho.
you want pace, revs and slidey tokyo drift style cornering....check out this mofo!
On a slightly more serious note, it does give you quite a lot of exciting times. 1967 / 68 mkIII with the big 1.3 block! Corners and braking are a bit of a lottery. There's sufficient power to pull the skin off a semi set rice pudding. Being sat down at lorry wheel nut height tend to make you very observant of what's going on around you. It'll only wind up to about 60mph and that takes most of the day, but due to saggy static belts, doors that have their own unique sense of fun and general scariness it feels much faster.
Sadly, this picture doesn't tell the whole story, last time I was out we had a teensy weensy little fire. I noticed it bellowing smoke, pulled over jumped out and then realised I could either stand there and watch it burn into the gutter, or jump back in, drive the last few hundred metres home and have a chance of putting it out. So, on the phone to missus crispy, soak some towels I'm coming home in a blaze of glory!