You have some evidence that the steel used in the Soviet military was of some especially high quality? I remember reading an article many years back about Magnitogorsk, their model steel town, which described the factories as wretchedly obsolete.
I’ve never since owned a car which had as good gas mileage as my old Fiat Strada (except possibly the 127 I drove in England). For sure the much newer Golf with which I replaced it was far thirstier. Both had comparable pollution control equipment (the Fiat was California-compliant). Building a whole new car and scrapping another because of one component (the skin) failing in the latter makes no sense, except maybe to junkyards (which want your scrap) and new car dealers.
