Speaking of Buicks… this one was spotted at the Arlington Show & Shine last year.
I learned to drive in a 1979 Buick Le Sabre. It was enormous, but being a smogged late 70s Detroit gutless wonder it’s V-8 probably had less real-world power:weight than my 2002 VW jetta TDI, which while only having 90 HP, moves the little sedan around just fine, while getting ~50 MPG. That old Buick sucked gas like there was no tomorrow and seemed like it weighed 6,000 lbs! When you floored it the engine would make a lot of noise, but nothing beyond that ever really happened. Just noise. It had fake plastic holes on the fenders that were barely noticeable. It looked like this, except it was blue. We called it “The Blue-ick” in my family.
One seventies oddity I remember about it was the gasoline filler hidden behind the license plate. You never see those anymore.
Three portholes would make it a Buick Special. The Century and Roadmaster had four. Looks to me like a 1955 model.
The “lotsa noise but little movement” sounds like a Hydramatic transmission.
Here’s a picture of a 1955 Buick Special in the same color. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buick_Special_lightblue.jpg
Why Buicks have holes in the side: they actually USED to be functional!
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8SAWKBxMH2s/Sw0PG3YHXAI/AAAAAAAAFFI/ek66NQJjUrg/s1600/76+pace+car+with+bug.jpg