I think your conception of the sophistication of all this is a good deal too high. Fobs are extremely low power devices with truly terrible (undersized) antennas. Fabricating a digital repeater to produce a modest amplification is not difficult. The high frequencies involved are a benefit to the attacker because a high gain antenna remains reasonably portable. The active bits are low cost, widely available COTS digital transceivers and MMICs; the same stuff the fob and vehicle is made from.

A obvious countermeasure for such attacks would be to have the car measure the RTT between the car and fob, exchanging some cryptographic credential. If it takes too long the fob is too far away and/or an attackers repeater is adding delay.