Looking To Buy A Gen 7 Celica 140

[Who's more foolish?]

Hi all, Following my current car catching fire (!)i'm awaiting settlement from my insurance company but thought i'd kill some time and find out some basic advice.

I'm looking at possibly spending about £2500 -£3000 on a 140 bhp celica gen 7. it seems the logical step forward, about 2 cars ago i had a 91 mr2 turbo which is a touch impractical and thirsty on fuel! so after a couple of cars i'm wanting to go toyota sporty again!

This oil starvation problem, i'm assuming there's no obvious way of telling whether it has it just from going to see the car, but did it affect just a section of chassis numbers?

The wheels corrosion issue, did this just affect the 5 spoke alloys as found on the revision 5 mr2 or is it all STD alloys fitted on the pre facelift gen 7?

i'll be looking at changing the stereo to a dvd style system, would the fitting be similar to what was found on the mr2? also is there a kit you can buy which gives a bit of space under the head unit?

One other thing, what is the 'flap' thing above the stereo for?!? it's been bugging me for ages and no-one seems to have mentioned it anywhere!

Thanks for your help, basically what i want to know is can i get a good celica for the amount of money i'm talking about?

thanks again