assembled in America, a white Corolla, rolled off the line at NUMMI on October 7, 1986. Toyota received its first Japanese Quality Control Award at the start of the 1980s and began participating in a wide variety of motorsports. Conservative Toyota held on to rear-wheel-drive designs for longer than most; while a clear first in overall production they were only third in production of front-wheel-drive cars in 1983, behind Nissan and Honda. In part due to this, Nissan's Sunny managed to squeeze by the Corolla in numbers built that year. Before the decade was out, Toyota introduced Lexus, a new division that was formed to market and service luxury vehicles in international markets. Prior to the debut of Lexus, Toyota's two existing flagship models, the Crown and Century, both catered exclusively for the Japanese market and had little global appeal that could compete with international luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Jaguar. The company had been developing the brand and vehicles in secret since August 1983, at a cost of over US$1 billion. The LS 400 flagship full-size sedan debuted in 1989 to strong sales, and was largely responsible for the successful launch of the Lexus marque. 1990s In the 1990s, Toyota began to branch out from producing mostly compact cars by adding many larger and more luxurious vehicles to its lineup, including a full-sized pickup, the T100 (and later the Tundra), several lines of SUVs, a sport version of the Camry, known as the Camry Solara. They would also launch newer iterations of their sports cars, namely the MR2, Celica, and Supra during this era. December 1997 saw the introduction of the first-generation Toyota Prius, the first mass-produced gasoline-electric hybrid car. The vehicle would be produced exclusively for the Japanese market for the first two years. With a major presence in Europe, due to the success of Toyota Team Europe in racing, the corporation decided to set up Toyota Motor Europe Marketing and Engineering, TMME, to help market vehicles in the continent. Two years later, Toyota set up a base in the United Kingdom, TMUK, as the company's cars had become very popular among British drivers. Bases in Indiana, Virginia, and Tianjin were also set up. Toyota also increased its ownership of Daihatsu during this period. In 1995, Toyota increased its shareholding in the company to 33.4 percent, giving Toyota the ability to veto shareholder resolutions at the