Speaking of which, have any o' y'all priced chassis cabs, new or used? Once you add in a bed, I'm guessing you wouldn't save much over just buying a pick-up, right? Or can you really cheap out on the bed? Like get one from a junked F-150, or an old flat-bed truck?
There is a factory that builds fiberglass truck bodies in one of the towns I drive through for work. It appears that pickups (1/2, 3/4, 1 ton) are purchased new with beds intact, because I see one lot of intact trucks in one lot and in the other lot there is trucks with fiberglass rear bodies, like tool boxes. There is a organized stack of new truck beds in another location.
Stellar Crane and IMT are also in another town I drive through, both of them builds and installs cranes on bigger trucks, they tend to get new trucks that are cab/chassis only. I'm talking 1 ton and bigger pickups. The big trucks naturally are cab/chassis from the factory so they can be customized for the customer.