Swift Engineering is an American engineering firm that builds autonomous systems, helicopters, submarines, spacecraft, ground vehicles, robotics, and composite parts. The Chairman and CEO is Hiro Matsushita, a former racecar driver and grandson of the founder of Panasonic, Konosuke Matsushita.

Swift used to produce racing cars for open-wheel racing series, including Formula Ford, Formula Atlantic, the Champ Car World Series and Formula Nippon, having designed and fabricated over 500 race cars. Swift is AS9100, ISO 14001, and ISO 27000 certified.

Swift Engineering was founded in 1983 by David Bruns, Alex Cross, R. K. Smith, and Paul White under the name Swift Racing Cars.^[4] Their first car, the DB-1, was a Formula Ford which won the SCCA National Championship in its debut race.^[5] The company later built cars for Sports 2000, Formula Ford 2000, Formula Atlantic, and CART. Swift chassis won the Atlantic Championship from 1989 to 1992 and British Formula Renault in 1990.

In 1991, Swift was purchased by Panasonic executive and former Indycar racing driver Hiro Matsushita,^[6] grandson of Panasonic founder Konosuke Matsushita,^[7] who renamed the firm Swift Engineering. Under his direction, Swift moved up to the CART World Series for 1997, with two cars entered by Newman/Haas Racing and driven by Michael Andretti and Christian Fittipaldi. In CART, Swifts got four wins and 24 podiums from 182 race entries. Tarso Marques was the last driver to race a Swift chassis in CART in the 2000 season.

In 2000, Swift Engineering started to provide vertically integrated, multi-disciplined product development services including design, development, engineering, testing, and rapid manufacturing of prototypes, demonstrators, and pre-production articles.

In 2018, Swift Engineering formed a joint venture called Swift Xi Inc. [ja; fr] with the Kobe Institute of Computing to open its first office abroad in Kobe, Japan . Since 2018, a Yalie physicist and executive Nick Barua has overseen management. ^[8]

The first Swift racecar was the DB-1 Formula Ford. The car won its debut race, the 1983 SCCA Runoffs at Road Atlanta. The DB-1 was the third car designed by Bruns and was considered to be a design simplification of Burns's previous design, the Automotive Development ADF. The car was considered a landmark design that rendered prior Formula Ford models obsolete. The DB-1 had the lowest aerodynamic drag of any Formula Ford at its release. Over 100 DB-1s were sold in the 18 months following the car's release. The car won 10 Formula Ford championships over the next 13 years. The closely related DB6 won an additional six championships with the last one in 2008. The success of the car was considered one of the factors that resulted in the slow decline of Formula Ford in the US after 1984.^[9][10][11]

In 1998, Swift became the sole supplier for the new spec regulation Toyota Atlantic Championship. In 2006, the Atlantic race series became a part of the Champ Car (formerly CART) organization and was renamed the Champ Car Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda. Swift built a new car for the series, using 016.a as a chassis code. Swift became the sole supplier of chassis for the Japanese Formula Nippon championship in 2009 with the 017.n chassis (also known as the FN09).^[12] An updated model called SF13 was used in 2013. The company proposed a derivative of the 017.n, the 020.I, in response to Indy Lights' requirement for a new chassis for the 2014 season.^[13]

Beginning in 1997, Swift diversified into aerospace/aviation markets, working with major companies including Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX, Sikorsky, and others. Swift has also worked for governmental agencies such as NASA.

Swift Engineering is the parent of a diverse set of subsidiaries.

• 2012: Swift Engineering received the JEC Americas Innovation Award for its out-of-autoclave process^[44]
• 2012: Northrop Grumman Small Business Supplier of the Year, awarded from 1500 suppliers
• 2013: Swift Engineering has been chosen as a "Best in Class" A&D Company to Watch by Aviation Week^[45]
• 2018: Swift proposed to design, fabricate, and fly a Swift Ultra Long Endurance (SULE) 30-day mission HALE UAS with flight tests including 24-hrs, 48-hrs, and 7-days during the Phase 2 timeline for NASA. All operations, ground control, safety, reviews, and payload will be included in these test flights and within the proposed 2-year timeframe.^[46]
• 2019: Swift Engineering has been selected out of 25 companies around the world to install a UAS academy for the Ministry of National Security (Bahamas), to deploy a suite of drones to support the country's command, control, communication, and ISR efforts.^[47]
• 2019: Swift is delivering a pair of low-cost (90% reduction), low-weight (50% reduction) telepresence robotic arm replacements to NASA for their Valkyrie humanoid robotic assembly.
• 2019: Swift Engineering has been selected for the design and construction of Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) Airframe for Sikorsky.^[48]