I liked Minis from the off, what I saw was a well designed functional piece of kit, yes I know there were faults but relative to the times it was no worse than other cars.
But in terms of carrying four adults in reasonable comfort from A to B, at a low cost, it worked.
For the average driver I would say it was naturally safe, if going too fast around a bend it just scrubbed the speed off at the front, lift off the throttle and it turned in.
In slippery conditions there was the weight of the power unit over the front driven wheels to help with grip.
It's forward CG and slightly rearward CA made it like a weather vane - it wanted to point into the wind so it resisted side winds.
The engine was a 1930's design, hence gas flow was easy to improve, and the ignition system was iffy so again easy to improve
The shape of the combustion chamber generated lots of swirl making it relatively immune to lumpy mixture, ridiculously large choke area could be used on the carbs and the swirl would manage to present a uniform mixture to the spark plugs.
I started tuning to improve fuel consumption, and reduce the number of gear changes per mile.
That this increased power output and speed was incidental at first but then the extra became interesting, it came in handy when others showed their disgust at having to share the road with Mini's!
Relative to todays cars, there was little protection for driver and passengers in the event of a crash but cars of that period were no better.
