Hey, I'll try to take these in order...
It's a straight six, 4.2l
1986 (not late 70's

)
No armor. The headliner tried to fall off the other day and I used about a whole can of that spray adhesive to put it back up.
No, it does not scream "I've got money"
It whispers "look, I got a free car and I'm too cheap to do anything but drive it and whine about gas mileage

"
The engine has been very good so far, it has a few electrical bugs (Lucas, prince of darkness) and the trans is a GM T400. Pretty solid unit. I'd lose a match to a real truck, but oddly, you don't see too many of those where I live. Everything's made of plastic. I win.
And as for battlejag? Drive around in the San Francisco bay area for a while. Every commute is a battle. I make toyota's quiver with fear. Very easy to drive in heavy, fast, and aggressive traffic in this tank, you give a courtesy signal and do your thing.
Everybody thinks California drivers are crazy, it's just survival skills we've picked up rubbing fenders at 90mph