No, you don't need one to make the pertronix system work. To make that work you need (a) magic (b) a miracle (c) both. Is there something special about it? I don't believe so. I believe it is a common Chinese made coil but seriously overpriced and with a special sticker applied. Yes a 12v coil would be sufficient.
About six months ago a friend sent me a failed pertronix module so I could carefully destroy it and see what is inside and why it doesn't work and hopefully better understand why so many of these go bad. What I got was a device so simple even an eighth grade science student could have come up with it. It consisted of 1--a ring to slip over the distributor cam, magnetized and divided into 8 sections. 2--a very simple Hall effect sensor set in epoxy and joined to a piece of aluminum which served as the mounting piece. Just hilarious to me that this company has been successful at selling this stuff. At best they had $4 or $5 in this part and he had paid over $120 for it. Image below of an example of what I found inside...
~ Jon 1952 1/2 ton with 1959 235 | T5 with 3.07 rear end
