My cousin had an '83 Tercel 4x4 wagon. Looks like they kept that body style in '87 even though the rest of the Tercels were the next gen. You won't win any races from a stop light but they are tanks. My cousin's went for 350k miles, surviving two teenagers learning to drive a stick, before being totalled in a wreck. It was still running good and wasn't too rusty for being a MI car.
IMO, they are great vehicles.