Newbie - looking for some advice

Having being actively involved in a BMW forum for the past 3 years relating to my 89 325i Touring, i now find myself finding it difficult to refuse an offer from my Dad of a free 1995 Honda Accord 2.0es. (He's going for a newer Civic.) Despite being 10 years old, it's not covered 30k miles yet! Bodywork is tatty (he's getting on a bit!!), but inside looks spotless.

A few questions before i go for this though:

This isn't a vtec engine i believe, so i'm guessing it's not exactly going to have sparkling performance, right? But what can be done to improve things?

Anything else i should know about these cars before becoming an owner? Weak points? Things to watch out for? (This car has done mainly very short journeys, hardly ever warming up fully, which makes me wonder.)

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.