Even a 750.00 beater saves you in the end if you have room to park it. Allows you to deal with the Supra gremlins without risking the car when it's running funny. I would have got rid of mine years ago if it was my DD because the first problems were all age and poor maintenance related. I didn't have a head gasket issue with mine but when I pulled the head to check the guts better, I found a whole mess of problems. Now almost everything in my engine bay is new or rebuilt.
Poor build, age, poor maintenance... That's what causes the most greif.
I was fooled by all the glory stories on this and other forums. The reality is that for reliability you have to fix the age issues external to the motor. For power you have to deal with the internals too. If poorly maintained previous to you, it's all about finding and getting rid of gremlins. To me, it's a worthwhile journey, just don't be fooled by thinking its easy.