ALBANY — Billy Fuccillo, an automobile supplier well known during the Money Area and somewhere else for Tv set ads that boasted of “large” savings — a word drawn out into quite a few syllables by the businessman as “yuuuuuuge-jahhh” — died Thursday at age 65, according to his longtime lawyer, Robert Scalione.
Fuccillo experienced been in declining well being for an extended period of time. His Fuccillo Automotive Team, primarily based in Syracuse, is the greatest privately owned dealership in the condition, and has destinations throughout upstate New York and in Florida.
Archive: Billy Fuccillo fell into automobile sales soon after university and has in no way appeared back
A philanthropist and standard sponsor of sporting functions — specifically golfing — throughout the region, Fuccillo was greatest identified for showing in Television and radio ads in which his outsized body and booming voice went over the major to pitch deals.
“My mother tells me she mutes me when my commercials arrive on,” Fuccillo explained to the Occasions Union’s Paul Grondahl in a 2008 interview.
A Extended Island kid whose mother and father were being the two beauticians, Fuccillo played soccer at Syracuse College. Immediately after graduation, he reported, he “didn’t have a job, was broke and was going to be evicted from my condominium. The only position I could get was promoting vehicles. I found out I was very good at it.”
He purchased his initial wholesale auto business in 1981 and his very first new store in Adams, just south of Watertown, in 1989.
Fuccillo beloved obtaining the movie star treatment: “I was having meal in Saratoga very last night time and folks held coming up to my desk, inquiring for autographs, shouting ‘huuuuuge!’ I get that anywhere I go. I determine ‘huuuuuge!’ turns off perhaps 20 per cent. I really don’t want to offend anyone, but you’ve received to get their focus and get them in your store,” he claimed.
He said the solution of his achievements was his function ethic. “I hardly ever quit,” he instructed Grondahl. “I have salespeople producing $35,000 and a number of creating $200,000 a calendar year. The most successful ones are with a client or have a telephone in their ear all day prolonged.”
Fuccillo’s outsized, outgoing character served much too, say all those who worked with him.
“He was a major man. He was a significant persona,” mentioned Kim Perrella vice president for Vehicle Exhibits and Member Relations at the Eastern New York Coalition of Automotive Vendors, Inc. in Albany.
Wherever he was, men and women realized that Fuccillo was in the room. He was also generous, Perrella said. She recalled the time following the 9/11 attacks in New York Town when he achieved out to fellow vehicle sellers who had gone to Washington D.C. and have been trapped there, and provided to get them household on his personal jet. A further time at an automobile dealer’s conference in New Orleans, he also provided the use of his jet if somebody wanted it.
Fuccillo also was lively in charities, donating to brings about ranging from community food pantries to police memorials.
There was a sharp thoughts powering the boisterous persona, nevertheless, Perrella reported, detailing that his more than-the-prime ads proved effective. “People could chortle at him but, you know what? That guy was one particular of the smartest guys I have known for the reason that all people understood his identify. Internet marketing-sensible, he strike it out of the park,” she explained.
He also had a mastery of managing and juggling numerous dealerships, which is a feat in alone presented the complexity of jogging even one fashionable shop.
“A car or truck dealership is a very sophisticated business it really is 4 or 5 businesses in a single,” Perrella explained, conveying that car retailers are maintenance and human body stores as effectively as retail services.
At its height, the Fuccillo title was affiliated with far more than two dozen dealerships across the Funds Location, Central New York and Florida.
Scalione, who was his lawyer for extra than two many years, remember’s Fuccillo’s generosity. “He was a person of the most providing individuals I would at any time met. He manufactured peoples’ life much better.
Scalione agreed that Fuccillo was a “good businessman” hoping new concepts and strategies, such as running contests in which getaway cruises ended up provided absent.
“Billy always did matters that other people today wouldn’t dare to do,” Scalione mentioned.
Fuccillo experienced downsized just lately, even though his son Billy Jr. has opened up car suppliers of his personal.
In January Fuccillo sold three dealerships in the Syracuse region and two in the Rochester place to Matthews Car Team which is based near Binghamton.
And very last calendar year, he bought two dealerships in Port Charlotte and Cape Coral, Fla., to the publicly traded LMP Automotive Holdings organization primarily based in Plantation, Fla.
He also marketed his $2.5 million household in Cape Coral, Fla., final fall according to Florida news experiences. He experienced been living in nearby Sarasota, Fla. at the time of his dying, experiences stated.
Inspite of his challenging do the job, Fuccillo also understood how to enjoy himself.
“Company gets slow in December and January, so that’s when I participate in. I go deep-sea fishing in Cabo (San Lucas),” he stated, referring to the Mexican resort. “I caught two huge sailfish past yr and fought one of them for far more than an hour. You know you’re outdated at the end of that dance. I also enjoy a good deal of golfing. I am a 12 handicap.”
Fuccillo claimed he had been approached about jogging for office, which includes for governor, but be hated politics. “No way. I’m not enrolled and I normally really don’t vote,” he said.
He said his best working day as a automobile salesman was selling 514 autos in a one day in Adams in 1996, when stunt motorcyclist Robbie Knievel — son of Evel — jumped “a bunch of cars.”
“Now, that was absolutely huuuuuge,” he claimed.
