Hiro Matsushita

Hiroyuki "Hiro" Matsushita is a former driver in the Champ Car, Formula Atlantic series who won the Toyota Atlantic Championship (Pacific) in 1989 as the first and only Japanese. He is also the first Japanese driver to race at the Indianapolis 500(Indy500). He is the grandson of Matsushita Konosuke, founder of Panasonic, and son of Masaharu Matsushita, who served as the second president of Panasonic for sixteen years beginning in 1961. Away from the track, Matsushita owns Swift Engineering, an American engineering firm used to known for producing racing cars for a variety of open-wheel racing series, including Formula Ford, Formula Atlantic, the Champ Car World Series and Formula Nippon. He bought Swift in 1991.