Your car will have most likely a 28/32 TLDM, same as used on the later XR2, not a bad carb certainly clean no good power wise but there you go.
Anyway clean out the float chamber, take the float out and blow through with an air line after taking the needle valve out that the float closes, you may even find the float is punctured if plastic, if so dry out then seal hole with glue.
It defo sounds like crap restricting the fuel flow, the normal problem on these when people always drive really gently is the secondary venturi seizes up, this is vacuum operated and they seize through lack of use, could also pull the pipe that feeds the vac unit and suck on it to make sure it holds pressure/vacuum.
tabetha