I will never ever understand the mentality of "I only paid XXX for a car, and therefor have a low ceiling for spending anything to keep it running".
So, if some relative who had a nice cherry two year old vehicle suddenly passed away, and you got the car for free, you'd forbid yourself from doing ANYTHING to it?
I paid $1500 for my daily driver, not running, in the summer of 2009. I spent twice that getting it fixed back up. I still drive it today, over 150k miles later, and will still be driving it (assuming no major crash or something like that) 150k miles
from now. All told, total, I have about $6k in a car that is: A: paid for, B: reliable, C: fun, and D: frugal. All for less than half of the cheapest new garbage penalty box entry level turd like a Versa or Mirage. And it is faster and bigger and uses less fuel to boot!
The car is worth what it is worth
to you, no more, no less. Don't let the purchase price make the car become a piece of junk when it isn't right now. They are not making any more of these cars, and quite frankly there isn't much of anything newer that can do what these can. Sell it to someone who cares, you may find that $1500 is a steal to someone else, and they'll happily grab it and bestow upon it whatever is necessary to keep it working as it should.