While Toyota's upscale luxury brand, Lexus, has been around in the U.S. for a couple of decades, it wasn't until 2005 that it made its way to Japan. Previously, every model Toyota built was marketed in its home country under the Toyota brand. Lexus began life in Japan with three models, the LS, GS and IS, with the convertible SC added later. What was missing was a high-performance sports sedan to rival the likes of the BMW M3 and the AMG models from Mercedes-Benz. Toyota's response came in the form of the Lexus IS-F that bowed at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.