Little did we know how risky. The 1990 Lexus LS400 represented much that Toyota wasn’t. For starters, it was an object of discretionary income commanding $35,000—$61,732 in today’s cash. Moreover, the car was seemingly twice the size it needed to be, was twice as luxurious as any Toyota before, and was propelled by twice as many cylinders as the Corolla-grade thrusters that had made chairman Eiji Toyoda an internationally revered, well, Yoda.

That wasn’t even the scariest part. We didn’t know it at first, but the Japanese weren’t relying on the LS400 just to fake a heritage and infiltrate an established luxury niche, a niche then defined by BMW, Audi, and Mercedes. Instead, Toyota was also eyeing an amorphous, oft-maligned market that was, all through the ’80s, badly serving its uniquely American customers. What if the LS400 were the world’s most desirable Cadillac Brougham, the most intergalactically fantastic Lincoln Town Car? What if the LS400 were dead reliable and unpretentious, a marriage of filtered ride, silken mechanicals, placid dynamics, and sub rosa luxury? Ready or not, that’s the car Toyota built.