I like tube w fiberglass bodies
I like the way ranger guys back half their trucks and then remove the front half too, leaving basically some frame rails from the front bumper to the back of the cab, then everything else is tube.....easy to work on, light and functional. Can hang fiberglass to make it look like a truck/explorer/f150 whatever you want. Nothing like a fully linked long travel 4wd ranger based truck to get the juices flowing, whether its mud, rocks or sand they are super awesome.
But you will be exposed to the elements and the noise, trucks are quite noisy going down the road when there is no body, wheel wells, floorboards, and noise dampen material
The only thing I don't like to see is all these cobbled together rigs with half inside cage, half exo, some weird bends to try and clear the old dash, mount some old seats, tie into this, tie into that with bars going everywhere through the hacked up body...etc etc too much weight up high hurts your cause. Exo tubes take too much metal to reach their destinations
Either do tube or do frame rails, but dont do some and bits and pieces, plan it out do it right!
That said there is something to be said for a simple A pillar/B pillar interior cage.
A stripped down sport body with a simple roll protection is probably the way I would go. I like the creature comforts and we do alot of winter so I keep as much ""cab" as I can..its also cheaper and probably a heck of alot easier....plus if you screw it up, go get another sport body
I mean I am looking at fixing up my BII rust.... I can get a rust free BII body for like $300... lol at some point you just swap the body
@RangerX has a really nice simple driver protection cage that i've always liked, maybe he will share some pics