ignition coil ?

When my 1964 Valiant cut off while driving it home after purchase, as a quickie fix I jumpered 12 V straight to coil+. It ran fine like that for about 5 miles, then started missing terribly above 45 mph. I pulled over and found the coil so hot I could smell its paint melting. I then got another jumper wire so I could route it thru the ballast resistor and no more problems. I found some gomer had monkey-wired the key switch, using many loose spade terminals, plus they stupidly wired straight off the ignition switch to run an electric radiator fan with no relay in-between.