Huh? The diagram in the article shows two men ("Thief 1", "Thief 2") between the fob and the car, with arrows showing communications going from fob to thief to car. According to the first sentence of the Wikipedia MITM article, that's the very definition.
the relay is of the radio signal, there is no inspection or tampering of the relayed messages. basically, the extender tricks the car into thinking the fob is closer than it is.
In other words, there's identification, there's authentication, but authorization is replaced by "if in range, then authorized." Two out of three is still game over.
