CEO of an obviously successful company driving an old Volvo/Subaru looks frugal and quirky.
A sales guy working on commission driving clients in an old beater - looks like a drug habit.
Oh, not at all,
The exec vps of my former company were told to drive or rent modest cars ( rent if they only owned flashy cars) when they went on retail store tours. You see, the grocery employees and managers would start to gripe loudly about their own pay after seeing newer model BMWs and Lexus being parked in their lots by their boss' boss.
Sorry, but you completely miss the point here, that being the target audience. Senior management touring a chain of retail stores, to meet low paid overworked employees, is the exact opposite of the OP's issue, but requires the same degree of sensitivity to potential problems. Appearances matter, and you play to your target audience.
In the past I supervised large construction projects, in a region that prides itself for old school, frugal values. One job was as a subcontractor for one of the largest multi-national construction managers in the world. At one point, a manager for another sub asked one of the senior guys from the multi-national to join him for coffee. They then walked out to the local guy's Focus wagon company car, when the sub then offered to pour a drink from his Thermos. It became legend in the offices of the bigger company, and not in a good way. Here was a clueless local trying to network, and a worldly project manager who fully expected to jump in to a nice four door pick-up and be taken to a local eatery, with nothing less that a good cup of coffee, a nice pastry, and an offer to buy breakfast. Instead he is dealing with a putz offering a pour from his thermos while they lean against a car that looks like something a broke kid would be driving to a local community college. The Focus driver did a great job of convincing his target audience that he was a clueless hayseed. Truth be told, he is in fact a key player in a very competent fifty million dollar a year operation.
Doesn't matter if it's my example, the OP's decision, or the correct choice of your company's folks not showing up in $100K cars to meet with salaried employees making $40K a year, to work sixty hour weeks, while being treated like rented mules. It's all about the right tool for the job, and as you correctly noted, impressions matter, a lot.