Pryce was born on 11 June 1949 in Ruthin, Denbighshire, Wales, to Jack and Gwyneth Pryce. His father had served in the Royal Air Force as a tail-gunner on a Lancaster bomber before joining the local police force; his mother was a district nurse. Pryce's older brother David died at the age of three. Pryce attended Nantglyn Primary School, Denbighshire, and the family later moved to Towyn due to his father's job.
Pryce took an interest in cars while driving a baker's van at the age of ten. His childhood racing hero was Lotus's Scottish driver Jim Clark; his mother recalled that he was very upset when Clark died at the Hockenheimring in April 1968, and his father noted a similar reaction to the death of Jochen Rindt. After leaving school at 16, Pryce undertook an apprenticeship as a tractor mechanic at Llandrillo Technical College at his mother's insistence. In 1975, Pryce married Fenella "Nella" Warwick-Smith, whom he had met at a disco in Otford, Kent in 1973. Following his death, Nella went on to run an antiques store in Fulham, London, with Janet Brise, widow of Tony Brise.
Pryce's first steps into motor racing came at the Mallory Park circuit, where he was put through his paces by Trevor Taylor, an ex-Team Lotus driver. He entered the Daily Express Crusader Championship, a series run by Motor Racing Stables for racing school pupils using Lotus 51 Formula Ford cars, with races alternating between Brands Hatch and Silverstone. Pryce won the final round, held in rain at Silverstone the day before the 1970 Formula One International Trophy, by a comfortable margin, earning a Formula Ford Lola T200 worth £1,500 presented by Sir Max Aitken.
Pryce continued to race through 1971, entering a Formula F100 twin-seater category which he won with what was described as "embarrassing ease", before moving into Formula Super Vee and making his Formula Three debut.
In 1972, Pryce won the Formula Three support race for the Race of Champions at Brands Hatch in an unfancied Royale RP11, defeating established drivers including Roger Williamson, Jochen Mass, and James Hunt. During practice for the Formula Three support race at the 1972 Monaco Grand Prix, his car stopped at Casino Square after a wire came loose; as he exited to fix it, Peter Lamplough lost control and struck the Royale RP11, knocking Pryce into a shop window and breaking his leg. He was back in action two weeks later.
Pryce also won the Formula Super Vee series in 1972 by a comfortable margin, and took pole for the final three rounds of the Formula Atlantic championship, winning the final round at Brands Hatch. He continued in Formula Atlantic in 1973, winning three races. He raced in Formula Two with Ron Dennis's Rondel Racing outfit, his best result coming at the Norisring where he led until brake failure forced him to yield to teammate Tim Schenken. At the end of 1973 he won the Grovewood Award.
At 25, Pryce graduated to Formula One with the newly formed Token Racing team, created by Tony Vlassopulos and Ken Grob. His World Championship debut came at the 1974 Belgian Grand Prix, where he qualified 20th and retired after a collision with Jody Scheckter's Tyrrell.
Refused entry to the 1974 Monaco Formula One Grand Prix as "inexperienced", Pryce instead drove for Ippokampos Racing in the Formula Three support race in a March 743, winning by 20.8 seconds.
Following his Monaco Formula Three win and a short spell in Formula Two, Pryce was signed by Shadow as replacement for Brian Redman. He debuted for the team in Holland, qualifying 11th — less than 0.4 seconds slower than teammate Jean-Pierre Jarier — but retired on the first lap after a collision with James Hunt broke the Shadow DN3's rear suspension. In France, Pryce qualified third, only 0.32 seconds from Niki Lauda's pole time, but again retired at the first corner after contact with Carlos Reutemann's Brabham deflected him into Hunt's path.
Pryce scored the first championship point of his career in Germany at the 14.2-mile Nürburgring, finishing sixth from 11th on the grid. He ended the season equal 18th in the Drivers' Championship with veteran Graham Hill and Vittorio Brambilla.
In 1975, Pryce's teammate Jarier had the new Shadow DN5 while Pryce remained in the older DN3 for the first two races. The team's fourth race of the season was the non-championship Race of Champions at Brands Hatch. Pryce qualified on pole, passed Ronnie Peterson and Jacky Ickx, closed an eight-second gap to race leader Jody Scheckter, whose engine then failed, and won — becoming the first Welshman to win a Formula One race.
Pryce also qualified on the front row at Monaco and achieved pole at Silverstone for the British Grand Prix. He took his first World Championship podium in extremely wet conditions at the Austrian Grand Prix, and finished fourth in Germany despite fuel leaking into the cockpit during the final laps at the Nürburgring, reportedly "searing his skin and almost blinding him with fumes". He received the Prix Rouge et Blanc Jo Siffert award for that drive.
At the end of December 1975, Pryce and Dave Richards entered a Lancia Stratos in the Tour of Epynt rally; Pryce crashed into a bridge 10 miles into the first stage but continued in the afternoon stages after the car was rebuilt.
Pryce immediately added a second podium at the opening round in Brazil. Regulation changes requiring teams to lower airboxes and mount rear wings further forward, along with revised Goodyear tyres, cost the Shadow DN5B much of its competitiveness. The new Shadow DN8 arrived at the twelfth round at Zandvoort, where Pryce qualified third and finished fourth — the last points-scoring finish of his career. He ended 1976 12th in the Drivers' Championship with 10 points.
Jarier had left Shadow for ATS, replaced by Italian Renzo Zorzi. Pryce started the Argentine opener ninth and ran with the leading group until a gear linkage failure on lap 45 of 52. In Brazil he qualified 12th but retired on lap 34 from second place with an engine failure.
Pryce began his final race weekend — the 1977 South African Grand Prix at Kyalami — by setting the fastest time in Wednesday's wet practice session, posting 1:31.57; eventual champion Niki Lauda was one second slower. The weather dried for Thursday's session and Pryce slipped to fifteenth on the grid.
In the race, Pryce made a poor start and was last at the end of lap 1. He worked back through the field, reaching 13th by lap 18. On lap 22, teammate Zorzi pulled off to the left side of the main straight after the brow of a hill; his fuel metering unit was malfunctioning, pumping fuel directly onto the engine, which caught fire. Two marshals crossed the track from the pit wall without prior permission: a 25-year-old named Bill, and 19-year-old Frederik "Frikkie" Jansen van Vuuren carrying a 40-pound (18 kg) fire extinguisher. Hans-Joachim Stuck and Pryce came over the brow simultaneously. Stuck saw Jansen van Vuuren and moved right, missing Bill by millimetres. Pryce, directly behind Stuck, could not see Jansen van Vuuren from his position and struck the marshal at approximately 270 km/h. Jansen van Vuuren was killed instantly. The fire extinguisher smashed into Pryce's head, killing him instantly as well. Pryce's Shadow DN8 continued driverless down the main straight, left the track, scraped the barriers, and struck Jacques Laffite's Ligier. The eventual race winner was Niki Lauda.
Pryce was buried at St Bartholomew's Church in Otford, Kent — the same church where he and Nella had married.
In 2016, an academic paper ranking Formula One drivers by mathematical modelling placed Pryce 28th of all time. David Tremayne, who had covered Pryce's career, named his son after the Welshman. The Tom Pryce Award is given annually to Welsh personalities who have made an outstanding contribution to motoring or transport. During its redesign, the Anglesey Circuit in North Wales named the Tom Pryce Straight after him, following a request from Ruthin Town Council. A memorial plaque, designed by local artist Neil Dalrymple, was unveiled on 11 June 2009 — what would have been Pryce's 60th birthday.
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