When Carroll Shelby raced cars in the 1950s, he kept a nitroglycerine pill under his tongue just in case his heart couldn't keep pace with the speed of the competition.

Shelby, whose very name epitomizes high performance in racing and production cars, wanted to win at nearly any cost, says Ken Eber, president of the Shelby American Automobile Club, an auto club with 6,000 Shelby enthusiasts.

"Racing is very physically punishing," he told IBD. "Somebody who does that is a very, very fierce competitor; they have a very strong competitive urge because racing cars is very competitive."

Over the years, Shelby has been competitive on and off the racetrack. His Shelby Cobras and Mustangs in the 1960s won races and the hearts of car enthusiasts. Many are collector's items today.

Shelby also branched into other areas. His brand of Texas-style chili sold by Reily Foods Co. has been a staple at chili cookouts for years. A foundation in his name raises money for children's heart surgery.

Besides all that, Shelby, 84, has survived heart and kidney transplants and two bypass surgeries.

Now the man known for his Texas drawl and colorful language is back in the spotlight as the architect behind Ford Motor Co.'s 2007 Shelby GT 500 Mustang.

With a 1966 Cobra fetching a record $5.5 million at auction in January, Ford is hoping Shelby can lend some of his well-known muscle to a new model, says Eber.

"They want the Shelby name and they want a high-performance car that can compete with the (Dodge) Viper and (Chevy) Corvette," he said.

Shelby was born on Jan. 11, 1923, in Leesburg, Texas. His father worked as a mail carrier while his mother was a housewife.

Young Shelby didn't enjoy school much. He spent much time riding in small airplanes at the local airport and watching car races on dirt tracks in reconverted bull rings.

After high school, Shelby took a job as a motorcycle messenger. That stint ended when he suffered a few scrapes in an accident.

Prior to World War II, Shelby joined the Army Air Corps to learn how to fly airplanes. He then trained recruits.

Shelby gave up flying when he and a group of students had to bail out of a disabled plane at night.

After the war ended in 1945, Shelby found an oil-rig job. Not satisfied, he got a loan and started a chicken ranch, wrote Wallace Wyss, author of "Shelby's Wildlife: The Cobras, Mustangs and Dodges."

"Shelby wasn't the type that could be happy working for someone else," he wrote. "He was a born individualist — the type who makes his own action, no matter how small a grubstake he's got to start out on."

Shelby's first taste of racing began while in high school. He entered two races and won both driving a friend's car. Years later his friend appeared with an offer to drive a more powerful car.

Shelby again "blew the competition into the weeds," wrote Wyss.

Some thought Shelby a rube when he showed up for a race fresh from his chicken ranch still wearing his bib overalls.

They thought differently when he won and kept winning.

By 1953, Shelby was hiring himself out as a freelance driver overseas.

After an accident in which he shattered an elbow, Shelby continued racing by taping his hand to the steering wheel.

He had a handle on winning, pure and simple. Even Sports Illustrated knew it, labeling him its Sports Car Driver of the Year in 1956 and 1957.

Shelby had his foot on the pedal. He opened a sports car dealership in Dallas in 1956. Three years later, he sped ahead in the 24 Hour Le Mans as a driver for Aston Martin.

Then it came to a halt. By 1960, he was out of the driver's seat because of his heart condition. He moved from Texas to California. He used his success as a racer to become the West Coast distributor for Goodyear racing tires. In 1961 he set up a high-performance driving school.

Though Shelby couldn't race, he set upon his next big goal: building a race car.

Shelby wanted to drop a powerful American V-8 engine in a small, lightweight European race car.

Shelby lacked funds, but that never mattered to him. When he heard that a British manufacturer, A.C. Cars Ltd., had lost its engine supplier, he called and proposed getting engines from Ford.

He then explained his plan to Ford, which agreed and bankrolled Shelby-American. The new firm was to build and test cars with the bodies from A.C. and the engines from Ford.

Shelby's knowledge of the track served him in brokering the merger, says Dan Power, president of J.D. Power and Associates, a marketing research firm. "As a racer, he developed through his experience what worked in a race car and what didn't," Power told IBD. "So he knew what needed to be done to make him successful in his racing."

The result was the Shelby Cobra, a stealthy race car built for speed.

By 1964, Cobras were beating Ferraris and others in global competition. A year later, the car won the prestigious world manufacturers' championship.

Ford then tapped Shelby to help design and build its new Mustang line of cars for racing and street use.

Again, with Shelby's help Ford's Mustang began winning races against once unbeatable competitors such as the Corvette.

The success of the Cobra and Mustang gave Shelby and Ford newfound global status, says Eber.

"At the time, the Cobras and the Shelby Mustangs were the only American cars that were successful in racing," he said.

Shelby also helped Ford's GT 40 race car win Le Mans in 1966 — a dream goal of Henry Ford II.

Ford produced the Cobras from 1962 to 1967. The Shelby Mustang program lasted from 1965 to 1970.

Neither car sold particularly well. But that didn't matter to Ford. Ford's triumphs on the track did a lot for its image, Eber says.

"If a Shelby Mustang or a Cobra won a race on a Sunday, then people would go to a Ford dealership and buy something on a Monday, so it was a good investment," he said.

Over the years, Shelby and his design team improved cars to boost performance. They tweaked the engines to squeeze out more horsepower. Each Cobra was given a 30-mile road test before it was sold.

Shelby scoured sources to give his cars an edge, wrote Eric Davison, author of "Snake Bit," a book about Shelby's Series 1 Sports Car project.

"His office was always piled with technical journals that he read and seemed to understand thoroughly," Davison wrote.

Quality is job one to Shelby.

On a visit with Otis Chandler, Shelby was happy to see the former publisher of the Los Angeles Times owned a vintage Cobra. But he was dismayed to see that it had wire wheels, says John Marin, a longtime Shelby pal.

"Carroll walks in and says, 'Otis, them's the wrong (bleeping) wheels, but you know me and I'm going to send you the right (bleeping) wheels' — and he did," Marin told IBD.

Over the years, Shelby's frankness has endeared him to the automotive press, says Davison in "Snake Bit."

"Even though all of the press knew that Carroll fed them a lot of nonsense most of the time, they loved the fact that he was upfront and spoke his mind," he wrote. "There was also a great respect for accomplishments, and no one wanted to rain on his parade."

BY PETE BARLAS