The death of mega car dealer Billy Fuccillo in June 2021 put an end to the emphatically pronounced “HUUUUUU ... GE” tagline he used in his TV ads.
Ten months later, the sale of many of those dealerships to a New Jersey resident offered another signature phrase — “WOOHOOO!” — with which Walid “Wally” Darwish began and ended TV ads for his Wally’s Auto Group, promising “fun” and “a great deal.”
Remember the commercials?
I’d forgotten about them until Darwish’s name appeared in a decision handed down last month by a mid-level New York appeals court. Here’s how that came to be.
Darwish, with a background in car sales and management, purchased 10 Fuccillo Automotive Group dealerships in upstate New York in April 2022, including local shops in Schenectady, Latham, East Greenbush and Amsterdam. He told the trade publication Automotive News that he began exploring a deal in 2020, but negotiations were interrupted by COVID-19 lockdowns and his own battle with the virus, followed by Fuccillo’s death.
Court records indicate that financing for the purchases came from an investment group associated with Potamkin Automotive Group of Miami, which lent $46.5 million to an entity to purchase the dealerships’ real estate and $15.5 million to another entity to acquire the dealerships themselves. On its website, Potamkin calls itself one of the largest car dealership groups in the country with operations nationwide, including in New York.
The loans played a role in a lawsuit that quickly followed, which saw Darwish sued in state court in Albany County by the two management groups he had formed to run the dealerships. He subsequently lodged counterclaims against Potamkin executives.
The suit accused Darwish of continuing to operate as if he were primary owner when, as part of the financing, the bylaws of the management groups were amended to put a triumvirate in charge: Darwish, Mark Manzo and Barry Frieder, the latter two being top executives at Potamkin.
The management groups alleged Darwish unilaterally cut off their access to dealership accounts held by TD Bank; he counterclaimed that Potamkin was maneuvering to push him out and take over the car businesses.
A related lawsuit, filed last summer by Volkswagen of America in state court in Westchester County, where Darwish’s operations are based, was shifted to Albany County and combined with one there in which Volkswagen was sued. The cases, which share some parties with the loans lawsuit, challenge whether authorization to operate a VW dealership in Schenectady lay with the reconstituted management groups or with Darwish alone.
A year ago, Justice Richard Platkin of state Supreme Court in Albany County rejected Darwish’s request to dismiss the management groups’ lawsuit against him, a decision then appealed to the mid-level appellate court that sits in Albany.
That court last month affirmed Platkin’s decision to let the lawsuit continue — an outcome I’d bet did not elicit a whoop of WOOHOOO! from Darwish.