Homer: "How much of this came to pass?"
Sounds a lot like the first two cars I ever owned -- a 1956 Volkswagen, about 35 mpg, and a 1969 Corvair, well, maybe 30 mpg... downhill. ;-)
Vega and also Chevette were American tin can embarrassments. VW comes closest, IMO. The Trabant also had same sized (tiny) engine and extensive plastic panels as foreseen in article...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabi
The engine for the 500, 600, and original 601 was a small two-stroke engine with two cylinders, giving the vehicle modest performance. At the end of production in 1989 the Trabant delivered 19 kW (26 horsepower) from a 600 cc (37 cu in) displacement. The car took 21 seconds from 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph); the top speed was 112 km/h (70 mph) with an official top speed of 100 km/h.
The Trabant was a steel monocoque design with roof, bootlid/trunklid, bonnet/hood, bumpers/fenders, and doors in Duroplast. Duroplast was a hard plastic (similar to Bakelite) made of recycled materials: cotton waste from the Soviet Union and phenol resins from the East German dye industry, making the Trabant the first car with a body made of recycled material.[