I drove an ‘86 Alfa Romeo from 1995-2008 and 111k miles that I put on it. It broke down exactly once and that was a Bosch distributor that broke internally.

I wouldn’t think twice about driving a reasonably maintained 25-30 year old Toyota if that was the vehicle that best fit your use case.

I think once cars got to closed-loop EFI and electronic ignition (mid-80s), they got way more reliable and low maintenance.