Interestingly, they cover up the star emblem in the steering wheel, but it’s still featured on the side views of the wheels...ugh!
It's the latest rage. If they don't "blur" an object (face, logo, etc.) in post production (Hey Ray Hays, know what I'm talking about??) they will black out logos. Many times in shows and movies, a blue Ford oval is painted black (as if that disguises the distinctive Ford Explorer...NOT); the Mercedes grill star is covered up, the GMC products are "de-badged"...
The reasons are interesting. If GM is sponsoring the show, well, no blue Ford logo can be seen, heck no! In fact that will be the car destroyed in the chase scene. If "Under Armour" is a sponsor of some project, then Adidas and Nike logos will be taped over. Even if there isn't a conflict of interest such as that, in some cases the producers try to
blackmail win favor with a product and try to get "placement". If they don't bite, then the logo is removed or otherwise covered over. There are so many shows where Apple MacBooks are used, and when Apple has paid for placement, the distinctive cut out Apple logo is clearly shown on the back of the monitor screen. When they don't pay to play, they put some random shape over the apple...
In all the reality home building and renovation shows, it is so common to see shirts, trucks, product packaging etc. all blurred or blocked out because of these reasons. Another random reason is they don't want to provide any "free advertising" whatsoever. Say a house on one of those shows is "staged" with some attractive furniture, and the house is in Dallas, The ABC Furniture company truck is shown delivering said furniture. It would be hard to come up with a suggested price to show the truck's logo on a show destined for national exposure, and it would be hard for the ABC furniture company to justify such an expense. Nonetheless a few savvy watchers of the show may potentially spot the truck and call the furniture company. Well, over their dead bodies say the producers...and hence the name on the truck is blurred out in post.
Then the product placement, for which the manufacturers pay dearly, can turn a television show into a brief infomercial. Once saw a show where they very clearly showed the viewers the charms of some Toyota's nav system...and I laughed.