What a huuuuuuuuuuuuuge loss for Upstate New York. Car dealer Billy Fuccillo, best known for his advertisements with the “HUGE!” tagline, has died at the age of 64, as WGY confirmed today.
A graduate of Syracuse University in 1978, Fuccillo got his start in the world of auto sales in Central New York, building a sales empire that would end up including more than 20 dealerships in New York and Florida. Fuccillo Automotive Group dealerships sell everything from Chevrolet, Chrysler and Ford to Hyundai, Kia and Mazda cars. Locally, Fuccillo has dealerships in Schenectady, Latham and Amsterdam, among others.
At the beginning of this year, Fuccillo sold several of his dealerships to the Matthews Auto Group in the Syracuse and Rochester areas.
But it was Fuccillo’s low-budget ads, which featured him screaming that his deals were “HUGE!” that seemingly played every minute on the minute on local TV—and often seemed as though they were being beamed in live—that made the dealer famous.