Toyota Mark II most of all, its reliability; the Cressida was quickly gaining a reputation for outstanding ownership. In August 1983, Toyota chairman Eiji Toyoda initiated the F1 project ("Flagship" and "No. 1 vehicle"; alternatively called the "Circle-F" project), a clandestine effort aimed at producing a world-class luxury sedan for international markets. This led to the creation of an all new, full size luxury sedan designed for export markets and was called the Lexus LS. The US-market 1981 Cressida was the first car to come with motorized automatic shoulder harnesses which wrapped around front seat occupants when the door was closed and the
Toyota FJ Cruiser in 1984, Toyota had shifted towards increasing the size and luxury of the Land Cruiser line. The idea of a new FJ with rugged capabilities of the FJ40 originated in the mid 1990s with Toyota's product planner Dave Danzer and vice-president of sales and operations Yoshi Inaba. Danzer worked secretly with Akio Toyoda to set up a special shop at the NUMMI plant to test the feasibility of a new FJ40 by combining Tacoma underpinnings with the bodies of Toyota Bandeirantes, an FJ40-based vehicle still in production in Brazil (as a diesel model only) at the time. Toyoda returned to