My first and only is a really nice ke30 (had P's for a year). I love it, it's fun to drive and gets heaps of attention from all the right people. However it only cost me $250 and it got rwc the same day, probably owes me $1500 by now and I'm just getting to engine upgrade stuff. Insurance is cheap which is a bonus :)
BUT I borrow mums car whenever I know there is an hour long drive coming up and it's heaven! POWAH, cruise control, air conditioning, sound deadening, towing ability and storage/ passenger space that the corolla could only drool over. that list pretty much covers any car built in the last 20 years..
THE ONLY way you will find a nice one at a reasonable price is to search locally or snap one up 30 mins after it hits car sales, I would cry if mine owed me anything like $3-5,000! after owning it for a year I'm soo ready to get something newer looking at Subaru wagons in manual as we speak which make soo much more sense if you have the mone.
Hope that helps