What the minimum spend is will surely depend on how much you have available to spend. £1750-2500 is really not a lot, which doesn't mean you won't get anything nice, but will largely be down to luck and due diligence. Luck, because (presumably) with a budget that small you wouldn't be keen on traveling far to view cars and so dependent on what there is in your area. Due diligence comes down to knowing what to look at when viewing a cheap 2nd hand car, what is important and what isn't, looking online at the MOT history of whatever car you are interested in (which will give you an idea of how well looked after the car has been).
As to what you should buy, no hard and fast rules other than keeping things as simple as possible. That means n/a (naturally aspirated, i.e, not a turbo) petrol engine and ideally manual gearbox. A VW certainly wouldn't be at the top of my list, but at this price nothing (after the above) should be ruled out. A well looked after VW could work out a better buy than a neglected Toyota despite the latter usually being emphatically more reliable. But also, with such a small budget, if looking within your own area your pickings are probably going to be very slim. So you could (and should) end up with the car that has been looked after best rather than the trendiest/sportiest/coolest you've seen.
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