I dun did what I was threatening to do, and bought a silly pickup truck.
1998 Dodge RAM 1500 single-cab.
It has a 5.9L V8!
I love it. All the bits you expect to be crappy are crappy (electric windows, wipers, etc), it handles like a boat, there's about 10 degrees of free play around the steering wheel "centre" and it is easily the most comfortable thing I've driven. It's kind of like sitting in a very soft and comfy armchair. Plus the sound is absolutely nuts and probably quite obnoxious. There's barely anything to go wrong, and when something does go wrong, it's easily fixed.
It's actually not too bad on the road - as a single cab 1500 I'm able to park it in many (definitely not all) parking bays and because it's (relatively) small it's pretty OK with other traffic. Acceleration can only be described as glacial (4-speed automatic gearbox!), but it makes awesome noise and thunder while under way. It'll do 90 quite unhappily, and 65-70 is very comfortable.
Plus, it has loads of lights on the roof. I will add a rollbar, and even more lights. Happy days!
