Hey Richard,
I'm very familiar with a Ute. There are a couple of guys in Oz who do stuff like that and they have a Youtube channel called Mighty Car Mods. Some very funny stuff they come up with. They are very similar to some of the guys here in the States who I'm a big fan of, that do just as crazy stuff with old clapped out junk cars.
I have a subscription to Motor Trend On Demand, and the shows on there feature these guys, but you can find them on YT as well. A couple of these channels are: Roadkill, Roadkill Garage, and Hot Rod Garage. There are a few others too, but the guys on the ones I just mention build cars that are totally bananas, and they do some insane stuff with them from time to time. I get a lot of my ideas for my own cars from guys like that.
And of course, since the truck I just got has been spanked by it's previous owners, it's a perfect roadkill candidate. In fact, I'm debating what I should call it. So far, the choices I've come up with are: Silver-rusto, or Rusty-rado, or even Rotting-rado. I considered Silver-rotten, but that makes it sound it's stinky, which it isn't.
It has a 5.3L Vortec V-8, with a 4L60E transmission and transfer case, and the motor sounds great even though it's throwing codes for a misfire. I'm already on that issue, so no worries. So it has potential.
Who knows? Maybe one day I'll run into a clapped out PT Cruiser, or something similar, and cut it up and make my own version of a Ute!
P.S. I do remember Holden. I saw a lot of them growing up in Greece. Didn't know they went belly-up though.