Alec Raymond Purdy was born on 19 October 1945 in New Westminster, British Columbia. He was the second son of Dwight and Harriet (Coon) Purdy. He was a great, great grandson of Henry Boultenhouse Purdy (1814-1888), a shipbuilder from Westcock, New Brunswick who constructed nineteen vessels between 1852 and 1878. He was also descended through Master Mariner Reuben Boultenhouse who moved out to Vancouver in the 1890s. He attended public schools in Vancouver, British Columbia; Lethbridge, Alberta and the Dominican Republic. He entered the University of British Columbia where he received a degree in mechanical engineering in 1967. He began working for Westinghouse on gas turbines but left that position and moved to Toronto in 1970 where he purchased a Lotus 61 Formula Ford race car. This began a 42 year involvement in motor sports and more specifically race car design, fabrication and testing. After a couple of years in Toronto he moved to Hanover to work at Ferret Industries with Fred Wilken designing and building winning Formula Ford race cars. He lived in Hanover from 1973 to 1983. He spent the next 30 years as a sought after engineer in the auto racing world working predominantly in the United States. He was also interested in family history which brought him to Sackville on a number of occasions. He died on 4 July 2015 in Indio, California. He was buried in the River View Cemetery in New Westminster, British Columbia.