Luxury vehicle and Mercedes-Benz C-Class which particularly emphasize sporty handling. In the United States and Canada these vehicles, and larger premium offerings at the same market position, are known as entry-level luxury cars. The American and Canadian classification of entry-level luxury (formerly dominated by premium marques e.g. Buick, Oldsmobile, Mercury, Chrysler) is a broad category which includes not only compact executive cars, but also midsize to large cars and SUVs such as the Lexus ES, Acura TL, and Buick LaCrosse being similar in price to the BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-Class. However, the ES, TL, and LaCrosse do not fall under
Toyota Cresta five generations, and production eventually ceased in 2001, when it was merged with the Chaser to form the short lived Verossa, a sporty luxury car. The first Cresta was introduced April 1980 and was available exclusively at the renamed "Toyota Vista Store" (formerly Toyota Auto Store) sales channels across Japan, joining the recently introduced Chaser. The Cresta was positioned as a high-level luxury sedan just below the established, traditional luxury sedan, the Crown. The sales goal of the Cresta was to provide buyers with a luxury sedan, but not incur tax consequences for exceeding dimension regulations, the vehicle was limited