http://www.allpar.com/neon/stroke.html
" The direct injection engine would have been revolutionary at the time, long before Mitsubishi started to spread its own direct injection engines. The final 1.5 liter three-cylinder would have produced 95 horsepower and 128 lb-ft (174 Nm) of torque at a low 2,400 rpm, and be about 80 pounds lighter than the 132 horsepower 2.0; it would have been more powerful overall and probably more responsive than the 1.8 and 1.6 liter engines used in many export Neons; gas mileage was estimated at 10% higher than a conventional engine of similar power. Like the new Hemi, it had two spark plugs per cylinder; it also used a supercharger. That was the design to end up in the 1997 Neon - but it clearly did not! The goal of selling 25,000 North American 2-stroke Neons per year never resulted in a single sale. Neither reliability nor performance were problems:
Automotive Industries' test drive showed the 1.5-liter-equipped Dodge Shadow to have strong performance and smooth, quiet running, and internal tests verified the engine’s durability. The main problem with the engine was the oxides of nitrogen - NOx - which were fairly high due to the extremely lean-burning nature of the engine."
"In the end, the main problem might have been that the largest advantage of two-stroke engines was increased gas mileage, and that other technologies, applied to four-stroke engines, had much the same effect; and that customers were not generally asking for higher gas mileage at that time."