can a mod be brought to the repo if the model is free/do whatever you want with it

Sure, but that's also true for copyrighted names. I doubt any car company would really bother, but still, for BeamNG it would be better to play by the rules.

 

True. I doubt it would result in a cease and desist letter, but just look at (what I beleive) happened to a game called Farmer’s Dynasty when they used the model of a John Deere tractor without textures or anything.
The devs have to play it safe with copyright.

To get back to what @Dean Wang said, it’s fine to use a model as long as it is not copyrighted and/or you have permission from the creator to use it. No real badging on the repo.

 

Some of you don't seem to realise that:

.a) very little effort/money/time can be put into a cease and desist due to the fact they all follow the same tone more or less and C&D doesn't even have to be followed through with legal action, most times its used as a scare tatic.

.b) the companies may see it as a much bigger issue due to the game being a "crash simulator" one bug in the code or a jbeam thats not built right and a companies safety image is potentially at stake. To them it isn't just pixels on a screen.

.c) Beamng not only works in game development they have also done work with manufacturers, and research firms.

 

Even if the car is realistically jbeamed, I doubt a company would like videos showing their car crash, burn, blow up, fall off cliffs etc filling Youtube.