When getting old cars you must always be careful not to save too much money on the 'starter' car - as it can end up costing you a lot more before you have a restored car. However, if the car in question has a solid and pretty rust free body then its probably not a bad starting point. But if it has lots of rust you are probably better off looking for a better 544 to buy, and come back to this one for parts. You can swap a b18 or B20 into the car without major amounts of work - that peps up the old PV quite nicely.

Significant structural rust (stay away from unless you own a welder and know how to use it):
- Front frame spars - especially where they run under the front floorboards - pedal pivot area is rust prone too
- rear subframes - up from under the rear seat, over the axle arch, and back down and to the rear. I've seen more than a few junkyard PV with the rear springs poked into the trunk through rusted out spring mounts
- sills - more significant structurally in the lighterweight PV than in later overbuild heavy Volvos
- inner edges of floorboards - tranny mounts, handbrake mounts
- rear axle arm mounts - both arms angle inwards and mount near the torque rods in a rust prone highly stressed area

Pesky but not so serious (pretty easy to fix):
- floorboards - they are probably all rusty
- seat spars - the front seats sit of a single beam - if it rusts loose on either end it gets floppy
- radiator support - front frame crossbar - these (and the bumper mounts) all seem to fall off sooner or later
- rear 'depressed' trunk area - it collects water that leaks through the trunk lid, and the rubber mat makes sure it does its work