Okay, the chicken on Sundance Yellow yesterday may have clashed (see You Need This: A Pontiac Trans Am in special-order Sundance Yellow | News | Grassroots Motorsports).
But what about this one?
Marketplace - 1979 Trans Am | Facebook
Believe it or not, this is my dream car ... but not in the way you think. It literally appears in my dreams (typically in a rat rod-esque presentation, though).
It's not a manual (they're hard to come by). I'm also always skeptical about built engines (it largely depends on who built it), but it sounds nice. It does show some signs of rust.
What are your thoughts about this Trans Am? For $12K it doesn't seem too bad at a quick glance.
Resident Trans Am expert here... 
Looking at the first one on Mecum. This is a cool one, and an acquired taste. The Sundance Yellow isn't my favorite color (especially with the red bird) but it's cool to see, since the take rate is not that high. It's essentially a base Trans Am hardtop with a few options:
-Deluxe Camel Tan vinyl interior
-Olds 403/TH350 drivetrain
-A/C
-Power Windows
It doesn't have the snowflake alloys, so it instead has the 15x7 steel Pontiac Rally II's, and that means it's a disc/drum non-WS6 car, so it doesn't have the upgraded steering box, sway bars, springs, and body bracing. It does look incredibly clean, and mostly original, especially under the hood. Someone cut the dash for a DIN radio, which is regrettable but very common. Otherwise, this is a clean example. I'd love to see the build sheet!
On the FB Marketplace one...
-This is a hodgepodge of a car in a lot of ways. I prefer my 1970-81 cars to look like whatever year they came from, so I'm out on the 1977-78 front end on the later 1979-81 cars, but YMMV on that.
-It has the standard interior, nothing wrong with that. The seats suck either way.
-Looks like it's got a non-original Pontiac 400 bolted to the stock TH350, and there's nothing wrong with that (my car does too, after all). I question why someone would sink money into 4x casting cylinder heads, since they aren't all that great and there are many other better choices.
-The engine otherwise sounds stout spec-wise, but Y U NO POST PICS OF BUILT ENGINE???? Why people neglect to post engine pics when half the ad talks about the engine is very suspect.
-Color is obviously not original, but I dig it, and it would look great a little patina'ed up.
-It has the 15x7 Snowflakes, but has 4 wheel discs? One of those didn't come with the car. Good that it has the discs though.
-4 wheel disc automatic cars came with 2.73 gears, so if those are original, someone upgraded the gears. Actually, someone must have upgraded the gears, because the maximum ratio was 3.23, and you had to get the WS6 AND W72 4-speed performance packages to even get that.
-The buy-in cost of these cars blows my mind. When I bought mine in 2002, a car like this was $1500 max (I paid $2k for mine back then in better shape than this). Now this is a $12k car.
I'd personally pass on this one, but yes, buy a Trans Am. They are cool. 
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I tend to be more of a purist when it comes to keeping things original (except when it makes sense to modernize). The FB Marketplace one is close to ideal, but it's a tad off, if that makes sense.
As an fyi, I had never driven a second-gen F-body. I have driven a third-gen, and it was a blast. "Sitting" my lanky 6-foot-4 body in the back was not 🤣
In reply to J.A. Ackley :
2nd Gen F-Bodies are simultaneously awesome and absolutely terrible. If you drive one, you'll understand.
They are low slung, miserable-riding rattle traps that, with the right mods, can be tons of fun. And they can be made to carve corners better than you would think something with leaf springs, a stick axle, and recirculating ball steering could ever do.
In reply to Tony Sestito :
Low-slung, rattle-traps, you say? I have a '74 Caddy. I know that kind of ride .
Second-gen F-bodies have traditionally been a car to beat in oval-track racing. Metric chassis have since become the car of choice due to what you can do with coil-overs, but a well-setup F-body can still run well.
Nevertheless, I'm not looking for a car to do ovals. It's time to get a fun car (the Caddy is not that, although it's fun). Maybe an F-body is it. Maybe not. I guess searching is part of the fun, they say. I try to remind myself that.
