Phil Dagger, who transformed a small used car lot in Colwood into the largest independent automotive and recreational vehicle group in B.C., has died unexpectedly.
Dagger, 69, was found dead sitting on the couch at his North Saanich house on Monday.
He was born on Jan. 8, 1952, in Birkenhead, England and spent the early part of his life in the U.K. He immigrated to Canada in the 1970s, following his parents and his older sister, Janice, who had arrived earlier.
He was a chef by trade and worked in the kitchens of a number of well-known hotels for 20 years. He decided to strike out on his own and opened a small restaurant in Brentwood Bay. After working 16-hour days trying to make his venture profitable, he hung up his apron for the last time on Christmas Eve 1986.
With his easygoing nature and his ability to make friends with almost everybody he met, Dagger decided to try selling cars.
“I was a mediocre salesman at best,” Dagger said in 2015. “But that was an improvement over the absolute disaster of running my own restaurant.”
Friends remember his early efforts well. “He was almost too nice to be in the car business,” said Bruce Walker, who has known him for more than 30 years. “He ended just giving away the profits on every car he sold. He was way too kind.”
When an opportunity to buy Galaxy Motors, a small used-car dealership, presented itself in 1990, Dagger snapped it up. In typical car-business fashion, he bought the business with no money down and payments of $1,666.66 per month for two years.
With a loan of $10,000 from his mother to buy inventory, all the major banks having turned him down, he was in business.
The company has grown in the past 31 years to encompass eight operations spanning Vancouver Island, with five automotive and three RV dealerships in Langford, Courtney, Parksville and Nanaimo.
In the early days, Dagger washed and sold the cars himself, again working 16-hour days. Now the company employs about 160 people.
Even as his empire grew, Dagger never lost his personal touch.
“He was definitely an old-school self-made man,” said Todd Mechalchuk, president of operations at Galaxy Motors. “Every morning and lunch, he would make his rounds, saying hello to the sales staff, to the people in service and talk with customers.”
His gregarious nature did not stop there. Every Saturday, he would host a barbecue at the dealership, where he would make it a point to chit-chat with everybody.
“His business was his life and his employees were his family.”
Dagger, who still owned Galaxy when he died, formed long bonds with his many competitors. “He was well respected in the industry,” said Leonard Carson, general manager at Suburban Motors. “I will miss listening to his perspective of the industry.”
Meals shared with family played a large part in Dagger’s life. Cooking was his original passion and he regularly cooked meals for his niece, Amy Jones, and her family.
“He made a killer prime rib,” said Jones. “He enjoyed cooking for friends and family. He was also happy to pass on the skills he learned in teaching them to my 15-year-old daughter.”
Dagger’s other hobbies included travelling to off-the-beaten-path locations and poker, with frequent trips to Las Vegas, said Jones.
Dagger never married nor had children.“Phil was like a father to me and he regarded me as the daughter that he never had,” said Jones.
Dagger is also survived by a nephew, Mark Jones (Amy’s brother), who works in Japan.
A memorial and celebration of life is tentatively planned toward the end of September, with a date and location to be determined.
