As mr. Callahan would say. Sanding the car is making progress, and, when grinding away the spots with filler the metal showed some old repairs, I already found some 8 spots:

On the nose in the area below the emblem buckled and dented, pretty bad so I got an replacement part

The right side

Most of the damages are just damages, no rust. There is some rust at the bottom corner of the aft fenders in front of the rear wheels so this will probably mean some cutting and replacing panels.

And above the rear wheels

Damages at the right front fender, here there also is some oil canning

A poorly repaired hole in the door sill

Sanding away 6 layers of paint

The left side also had some surprises

Damage on the side at the front of the fender

Some damage at the rear upper wing

The rear looks pretty OK, just some minor dents

All in all I’m feeling not so lucky. On the other hand, it’s a 48 year old car so it is bound to have some hidden damages. When I’m busy sanding I keep wondering what the stories behind these repairs are ;). When did it happen? Who was driving? Who was he/she? What kind of work did he/she do? Where was he/she going to? Did he/she was married or have kids? And did the accidents happen in the states? What did it hit and how fast was he/she driving? Where was it repaired and who repaired it? I would love to have a time machine and go back in time and check out to see in what kind of lives my car was kept. Offcourse when I would have such an machine then I could also prevent these accidents so I would have easy restoration time now ;).

But anyway back to present, as I said most damages do not have rust, but we have to decide what to do with it. Best would be that all damages will be replaced with new or better 2nd hand panels then filling it up with filler again, but as sheet-metal of 1800’s is frigging expensive we’ll have to make a cost / benefit decision. To be continued..

This old advertisement of Volvo nicely shows that a Volvo is just a Volvo, a loyal reliable small sports car made for everyday use 😀

And last but not least, my best Clint eastwood imitation 😉