Aside from the definite lack of power (particularly with the 660cc EF) they're not bad little runabouts. You can fit a surprising amount of stuff in the back, so they're still pretty practical. Not too great if you spend a lot of time on the highway for fairly obvious reasons, but they can be good fun with a bit of extra motivation under the bonnet and a bit of time and money on the suspension. Incredibly cheap to fuel, which is a good bonus!

Watch for blowing smoke though. Valve stem seals like to die. If the car was maintained and serviced reasonably well, you shouldn't have any problems, but with cars that haven't seen regular servicing, they tend to build up carbon in the oil drains in the ring lands, which also pushes oil past the compression rings. Spark plugs are about $20 each because they use some obscure type. Cut springs in the front are shit. You can actually get a half decent lowered setup without spending huge dollars ($400?) and most other things are usually fine. Really easy cars to work on. You can have the engine out in about an hour, so engine out jobs like the timing belt/water pump are piss easy.