WIN PERCY: FROM A FARMER’S LAD TO A PROFESSIONAL JAGUAR RACER
Win Percy is Jaguar through and through. Although the now-78-year-old enjoyed success with a range of manufacturers, Percy has an enduring passion for Jaguar from a racing career that took him from a FordAnglia in autocross events to Jaguar XJ-S touring cars and Group C Jaguars at Le Mans.
He was a three-time British Touring Car Championship winner and sustained a professional career for more than 20 years. He emerged from a 240mph airborne accident at Le Mans in 1987 without a scratch.
Tragically, at the age of 58, he suffered a serious back injury in his garden and a major surgical blunder left him paralysed. With typical determination, he regained some mobility but his racing days were over.
He now lives in retirement in Spain, where Motorsport News caught up with him.As ever, Percy was a complete gentleman and answered readers’ questions about his remarkable life with his unmistakable Dorset accent and typical good humour.
Question: What was your early life like?
David Jones Via email
Win Percy: “I was born just outside the village Tolpuddle in Dorset in a little hamlet called Rogers Hill. I never did find out why it was called that. My father did everything farm workers ever do and when I started to grow up he was a shepherd. We were farm workers and they had shire horses and I remember being hoisted up on top of them.
“I remember sleeping in the shepherds’ hut when they were lambing, then my dad went into the dairy. I left school at 14 because I was told I was a waste of space. They said: ‘Why don’t you go and work on the farm because we find it difficult to teach you?’I was more interested in physically doing something.
“I had unbelievably lovely parents. There was no real money but, you know, that wasn’t the important thing. My dad told me that: ‘You’ll get on in life, my boy, if your yes means yes, your no means no and your handshake is as good as a signature. If you remember those things, my boy, you’ll get on well.’They were just lovely parents, they didn’t want money, they just wanted their kids. Me and my sister, she was two years younger than me.
“So when I left school I automatically went straight down the farmyard and started doing things there. What I loved was working on the tractors there when there was a problem. I could just get on and enjoy working with the cylinder head off, repairing the exhaust system or doing something and I loved it, I absolutely loved it.”
Question: What was your first job?
John Stayte Via email
“I saw an XK140 and said ‘One day, I will have one’”
Win Percy
“The natural progression was getting a little motorbike, anAriel Colt, which wasn’t the quickest thing in the world. And I started going into the local garage in Tolpuddle. Within a few trips, the owner would say: ‘Winston fill it up yourself.’So I’d go in, give him the money, or he’d say: ‘I’m busy, put it in the till.’And it was that sort of trust. Then one day he said: ‘You ought to do an apprenticeship, where you can come here and we’ll do the five years for you.’ “And I said: ‘Oh well, I don’t know if my father and the boss on the farm would like that.’He said: ‘There’s no need, I’ve already spoken to them and you’re starting on Monday.’ “To be honest, that’s how my life’s been every year.
