I wonder why Porsche allowed EA to wreck 911 Carrera 4S with a pressing machine and to blow Cayenne up in Need For Speed The Run. Perhaps they might not take the marketing through games seriously and keep renewing the deal just so that they can earn a static amount of money every year?
A pet peeve of mine, but in my opinion I think a lot of people make assumptions of how vehicle licensing works for video games. With regards to vehicle damage, this is an example of this: a lot of people say manufacturers don't like to see vehicles damaged. While I think this is true to some extent, I think there have been very few cases of a manufacturer explicitly stating they didn't like the way their vehicles were portrayed in a certain game.
What I do think has happened is people have made inferences or educated guesses on what vehicle manufacturers don't want to see based on how video games portray them or a particular manufacturer's absence from a game. To give some examples:
1) Prior to Need For Speed: High Stakes (Road Challenge for those in Europe), video games with licensed vehicles and visual external damage was almost unheard of (Games like Test Drive I through III either featured cracked windshields at best in first-person view or very crude rudimentary damage through polygon only graphics that was barely noticeable), I recall some gamers saying "because manufacturers won't allow it" without really quoting any sources, I feel they got the inference from seeing so many games go without it. Heck, before High Stakes some people felt we would never see real-life cars get smashed up in video games.
2) Honda has generally be absent in video games that feature police chases, although I don't think Honda has officially stated anything about the issue it is almost a safe bet for most people (and likely accurate) that Honda doesn't want to take part in games where their vehicles are involved in illegal police chases.
3) I remember some people saying early Forza games didn't allow cars to roll-over because once again, "manufacturers wouldn't allow it". I kind of doubt every manufacturer in the game came to such a unanimous decision, and again there was no examples of any representative from a car maker stating this was the case - what most likely happened was T10 either didn't want to model roll overs or couldn't get a satisfactory physics model with regards to that.
On a similar note, I find that The Getaway is the only game I've seen so far where licensed vehicles are allowed to catch fire and burn to a hollow shell, whether this is a licensing thing or this was the only franchise to attempt it so far I don't know.
Either way, assuming 1) in my list is right, I would say manufacturers have become more "open" to their products getting trashed in some form, so the damage and destruction seen to vehicles in NFS: The Run might not have been an issue. I know it is a little bit different with film and TV, but vehicles in that medium are constantly destroyed to the point not seen in video games, this is true even in cases where a manufacturer has explicit cooperation or product placement with a project (The Fast and Furious films haven't always treated the featured sponsored Dodges with respect at times).
Ferrari is the only real brand I have seen vocal about how they don't want their vehicles portrayed, and so far the examples have been non-video games ones such as requesting the guy who made the 360 Modena limo to remove the Ferrari badges or expressing distaste at Deadmau5's Nyan cat themed "Purrari" 458 Italia.
