Welcome, it does seem a nice place here.
I bought a (what seems to be) rust free 1.9 in my favourite colour last September. The coolant reservoir leaked like boat with no hull. I think that is fixed, well it looked good on Tuesday. I have an airbag light on, some centre console bulbs out and am just adding a wind breaker.
Whilst I drove it a little under the previous owners insurance etc (before i bought it) I have not really driven it. Insured and will be taxed tomorrow for the 1st.
I was looking at a Smart Roadster originally but a few things put me off. Then an MX5 but eventually I came across a Z3 (2.0 6 pot) which took my fancy but was am absolute POS. Rust everywhere and so bad it probably would not have moved on the rusted brakes. However I was taken by them.
I also have two other cars, one of them a weekend play thing and the other a Mercedes CLA which is my regular car. However the Z3 will double up as a daily in the summer hence a [weedy] 4-pot 1.9.

It will have a lot to live upto as I owned an Alfa 916 Twin Spark Spider of the same age before this. Anyway so far so good. This will be a fun car for me but also being a daily needs to be a bit economical.
Good luck with the search whatever you buy.
PS if it is purely for fun I would really consider a 6 cylinder car. Despite being a s*** heap, that 2.0 six I looked at did run and did sound very nice.