I think you're certainly on the right track by looking at the VN - VR - VS series. They're good, solid, reliable, cheap cars.
Personally, I wouldn't let high km's totally turn you off. It's a lucky dip I guess. My Dad bought a V8 manual VR wagon really cheap, with like 340,000km's on the clock. It drives like a dream, and is still going strong. So that's one success story. Other people you speak to buy a car, and a week later the auto gives up. Test driving a car is the key I guess, it should give you some hint as to it's condition. Service/log books tell a story too.
Buying a decent car for under $1500 is a piece of cake - it's the roadworthy side of it that's tricky. Do you buy a really cheap car, and fix a few things yourself to get the RWC, or do you spend a tiny bit more to get one already done? Tough call. It's definitely possible. If you could stretch the budget up to 2k I reckon you'd get a nice car with rwc. But who knows - shop around and hopefully do better.
I paid 3k for my VS series 2 Berlina. That included a full 12 months rego, and RWC provided (so technically the car itself was just over 2k). Only had 130,000km on the clock. Drives and handles like a million bucks, and has proven perfectly reliable. The only thing I had to do was a new set of ignition leads. I found it on gumtree.
Good luck
