The dogs bits with small Fiats was quite different.

A member of my parents' car club, the Circle Car Club, one John Beckhart (not sure of the spelling after all this time) co-owned a small car manufacturing company called Tornado. They made some silly things (a Ford E93A based special/bodykit called the Typhoon) and one very nice GT car called the Talisman - with a 1600 Ford engine it had about 200 bhp per ton and in the early 60s in the UK that was huge, and John's personal one had the 2 1/2 litre V8 out of an SP250 in it, like Mike Chittenden's amazing Morris Minor of about the same period) but the alarming one was the Tempest GT. They took a Fiat 500 (the tiny 500cc rear engined one) and put a 1200 Ford in instead. Then they decided that was too slow, and put in the 1600 GT Cortina engine instead. Then they got seriously mad, and put in one of the ford-block racing engines of the period, the 1870 Martin engine - detuned to produce about 150BHP at 7,000rpm. The whole car probably weighed about 11 cwt. I have no idea how the transmission was held together, but Beetle/Porsche hybrid is a possibility. This was a road car (honestly - he used to drive it to meetings, and do the shopping in it on Saturdays), with weight distribution about 30 front 70 rear, and the rear tyres were about a foot across the tread, which made them almost wider than high. He could start in second, change direct into top (4 speed box) and still beat an E-type jag (the early 3.8, the quick one) to 70, 100, and 125. Cornering was easy in or backwards out.

Not for amateurs. But the mini was very safe and friendly, no matter how hot you made it or how insanely you drove it.