It just might be the case that copyright was (at least earlier) not really applied to cars after some years. One of the result was that third party manufacturers were able to make and sell part to your car without much problems in many european countries. Later on (I think in the eighties) some manufacturers started to 'patent' some of their 'shapes' and treat them as 'intellectual property', 'patterns' or similar. The intention was to make it impossible for third party manufacturers of car parts to undersell 'authorized' parts. Then ofcourse there was a legislative response in some countries which stated that this monopolistic behaviour was inapropriate and tried to counteract it. I do not think that those efforts were very succesful.
Anyway, the rumour has it that there is a 30 year limit on old cars (but not car and manufacturer names etc). When it comes to the racing liveries - this is another matter. They would also be creations wich belong to someone - not necessarily the car maker itself though. Might be an artist, or the racing company that designed the car, even the drivers sometimes.
It would be interesting if someone from the slotcar industry could give us some hints about how they go forth when trying to sort these and similar licencing matters.
//peter

It would be interesting if someone from the slotcar industry could give us some hints about how they go forth when trying to sort these and similar licencing matters.

//peter