75 Matador Station Wagon

[AMX]

I was already subscribing to Motor Trend for about a year when that article was printed. Good to see it again!

[T5258]

I remember that Motor Trend story as well....

[ramblinfsj]

I don't know how well you guys can see the distributor in the picture but I was wondering if anybody can tell me what it is. It is a points type distributor with the metal vacuum advance. The reason I'm asking is all the auto parts houses online say it's a Prestolite. The only Prestolite I've seen was from my Postal Jeep's 232 and it had the plastic vaccuum advance housing. It looks like a Motorcraft distributor to me but I don't know for sure. The other thing that has me puzzled too is that the parts houses show a '75 Matador as having electronic ignition and a '74 as having points. I may have to check my VIN number again. I just might have a '74 Matador not a '75. Who knows?

[AMX]

Looks like a Delco distributor from the late '60s-early '70s. It's a good unit and can be updated with a Pertronix kit if you want to eliminate the points. On one car I actually converted from the Prestolite setup to points.

[IowaEagle]

It almost looks like there is an ignition module over by the battery.  Hard to tell though.  If so at least sometime in its life it was pointless.

[AMX]

My wife thinks all of my car are pointless. 

[ramblinfsj]

It almost looks like there is an ignition module over by the battery.  Hard to tell though.  If so at least sometime in its life it was pointless.

There is a box by the battery but I believe it's the regulator for the Motorola alternator. I'd have to walk out to the car to see for sure.

The only thing pointless about this car is the protruding nose.

[IowaEagle]

That protuding nose, like Jimmy Durante's, gave both the car and the man character.   I will say though, no other car maker imitated that particular feature, at least that I know of.

[ramblinfsj]

That protuding nose, like Jimmy Durante's, gave both the car and the man character.   I will say though, no other car maker imitated that particular feature, at least that I know of.

Good point (and funny). The protruding nose doesn't bother me that much. I'm still proud to have it and I'll be proud to drive it. I may have to name the car "Roxanne" in tribute to Steve Martin's character with long nose. (It's been a while since I've seen the movie so his characters name escapes me.)
I still need to figure out if this car is a '75 model or actually a '74 because all the parts listings are showing that the '75 has electronic ignition and this car has points. Maybe it's an early '75. I don't know.