The Silver Bullet

Ok here’s the deal. Before I was born my mom’s car died, and since she was pregnant at the time they bought a 1985 Volvo 240 DL station wagon brand new. Now 18 years later and more than 300,000 miles on it the car has for the most part become mine. I have been a fan of this car my whole life, and hate to see it die. The car is solid mechanically, but the body is a different story. 1985 was one of the worst years for Volvo bodies, as some of you may already know. The body needs some major work (which I will be performing), so here are my questions:
1. Does anyone have any body work experience that they care to share?
2. When adding steel to the existing body, which I assume is carbon steel, can I use Stainless or Galvanized?
3. Anything else that seems relevant except scraping it.

pics (http://secretweapon.netfirms.com/ourbots/silverbullet2/silver_bullet_2.htm)