First the back, yes it is tall, over 6 feet,the tarp is heavy vinyl and it sits on a mesh screen cage not just wooden bows. A lot of the specialty vehicles had the mesh cages, very rugged and you can actually stand on them, my 2 trucks have aluminum doors on the back. The front bumpers are mounted about 1 foot from the front and have 1/4" plates bolted to the bumper and the front fender, this is great when your doing maintenance you're not perched on the small bumper. The truck is almost identical to the M35, the biggest differences, they are all equipped with power steering, automatic transmission and come with about 6 - 8 inches more room behind the steering. A lot of parts are interchangeable. The part I really like is the tires, they are Michelin XLY mounted on combat rims, to remove the tire you undo a whole bunch of bolts and the rims split in two. Also the automatic tranmission in this makes it move, from a dead stop to 40 mph in half the time of an M35.
Yes, The exhaust comes out under the truck and has a small drum like appearance measures about 12 in lonch by 14 in dia with the pipe pointing down. It makes the vehicles very quiet, we are looking to putting the muffler on an M35, we want to keep the outside pipe, we plan on cutting into the "J" pipe and doing this mod. The only problem with this muffler is that you have all the exhaust going to the floor and then rising, we don't let the truck idle too long indoors. I have a newspaper photograher coming this week to do an article on the MVs in Canada and I will try and post pictures. I am planning on attending some get togethers this summer in NY and PA, I plan on bringing the MLVW.