I loved TD3 as much as I loved stunts. I never thought it was fundamentally broken, but as a 10ish year old kid, you take what you can get.

Maybe you had exactly the right CPU for it? On my old computer TD3 run ~3x faster than it should have because the devs forgot to implement the game clock calibration, an unforgivable sin for a 1990 game. On top of that the steering sensitivity was completely off.

Ross Scott made an excellent review of the game, illustrating its problems as well as its memorable design ideas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68zZZn8wy4E